September 17, 2009

Return of the Sky

image by Ábrahám Tamás, Zsámbék, Hungary

With the collapse of the western civilization many buildings were abandoned and others converted to different uses. Some churches had their roofs removed to open them up to the sky gods. Telescopes and computers were legends from the past, replaced by simple recording of the positions of Apollo and wandering stars, as seen here, to mark the seasons - although climate changes had made them erratic and no longer tied to expected temperatures. The positions of sky objects could be determined relative to high points of walls, and rising and setting of stars tracked through side windows, now stripped of obscuring colored glass. The high wall also kept out wolves. The loss of power generation facilities and gradual fallout of pollution from dead factories slowly converted the night skies to blackness, with a broad band of light across the sky becoming visible. This hadn't been seen before and the wise women who held small groups of people together debated if it was a new sign sent from the gods to lead them to a better place. But others claimed that the large god with the ancient name of Apollo kept dying and reappearing telling them that this place was sacred and they too might die but would be reborn. This was supposedly an ancient cult called the podites, stemming from a group long ago who followed every movement of Apollo using ritual tools to closely examine her glory. But that was all myth, and in fact most of the people were too harried finding food and shelter to pay much attention to the sky, leaving that to the priestesses.

Chuck Wood

Technical Details
September 16, 2009. Canon EOS 400D with 18-55 mm lens.

---