Marion Roach Smith’s alternate sisterly reality, with Margaret Roach.
ON THIS DAY in 1934 is the birth of one of the goddesses of conservation, Jane Goodall. She was 26 years old in the summer of 1960, when she arrived on the shore of Lake Tanganyika in East Africa to study the area’s chimpanzee population. We are grateful every day that she stuck with it, and designate her a sister we admire. You know we do this on occasion, yes? No? Either way, please read on. [click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
On this, the Vernal Equinox, the Sun rises exactly in the east, travels through the sky for 12 hours and sets exactly in the west. On the Equinox this is the motion of the Sun through the sky for everyone on earth, with all of us together experiencing the same 12 hours of sunlight. A lovely thing to ponder, maybe we should all consider how nature provides for us strong indicators of our sameness. We’ve just left winter, of course, as marked when the sun was its lowest path in the sky on the Winter Solstice. After that day the sun has been following a higher and higher path through the sky each day until it is in the sky, as it is today, for exactly 12 hours. After the Spring Equinox, the Sun continues a higher path through the sky, and days grow longer, until the Summer Solstice on June 21st. Here in the northern hemisphere, let’s enjoy this first — and every day — of spring.
How do I know this? I write and record the daily almanac piece entitled The Naturalist’s Datebook, heard exclusively on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius 112/XM 157. Listen up. And see my other TSP almanac pieces here, including a piece on how I change my diet each month at the full moon, as well as at the new moon.
{ 0 comments }
FULL SNOW MOON. That is the name of February’s full moon. We take our names for the full moon from the Native American tradition, and this one seems obvious, especially this year, when there has been so much snow, including in places that rarely sees such events as snowstorms. But this moon has also been known as the Full Hunger Moon, which addresses the tragic circumstances when something occurs to affect what food was put up for the winter, and supplies have run out, resulting in widespread hunger in the villages. And while the name of this month’s moon may need no explanation, maybe the moon’s position could use a little. Have you noticed that the moon’s position in the sky seems to change with the seasons? The path changes as one month leads to the next having to do with the sun and the tilt of the earth. That being the case, full moons are very high in the sky at midnight between November and February and low from May to July.
How do I know this? I write and record the daily almanac piece entitled The Naturalist’s Datebook, heard exclusively on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius 112/XM 157. Listen up. And see my other TSP almanac pieces here, including a piece on how I change my diet each month at the full moon, as well as at the new moon.
{ 0 comments }
OCTOBER SEVENTH IS THE BIRTHDAY of one of my favorite writers, Diane Ackerman, whose observations of nature have delighted millions of readers for many years. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Orion Book Award, John Burroughs Nature Award, and the Lavan Poetry Prize, as well as being honored as a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, she even has the rare distinction of having a molecule named after her, called dianeackerone. Ackerman’s essays about nature and human nature have appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, Parade, The New Yorker, National Geographic. I love A Natural History of the Senses, although who can resist her An Alchemy of Mind, Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden; The Rarest of the Rare and The Moon by Whale Light? My kind of woman, she once put a bat on top of her head to see if it would really get tangled in her hair. It didn’t. How do I know this? I write and record the daily almanac piece entitled The Naturalist’s Datebook, heard exclusively on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius 112/XM 157. Listen up.
{ 5 comments }
OUT OF THE DOG DAYS. August 11 is the official last day of what is known as the “Dog Days,” those 40 days that began July 3 and coincide with the ancient rising of the Dog Star, Sirius. We call them the dog days for that reason, though these are also the days in which there is the year’s least rainfall. The term “Dog Days” was used by the Greeks as well as the ancient Romans, who called these days caniculares dies (translated as days of the dogs), again after the rise of Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens besides the Sun. How do I know? I’m the writer of The Naturalist’s Datebook on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius 112 and XM 157. Listen up. (And that’s my best friend, Otter, above, shot by his best friend, my daughter.)
{ 14 comments }
FRIEND SLOANE TANEN made Marion a chick shrink. Click to learn why.
First time here? Here's the idea: The Sister Project is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in friendship or in feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top on our homepage says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: Learn more about TSP, and how to find your way around. And oh—a giant, sisterly welcome.
