Guest blog from Laurance R. Doyle, SETI Institute Principal Investigator
Ever forget to wonder about the stars? Robert Eklund’s First Star I See Tonight: An Exploration of Wonder will remind you. This book reminds me why I went into astronomy to begin with: The love of the stars, their beauty, grandeur, purity, playful order, our ancient ancestral relatives. Ah yes, wonder! Ah yes, perspective! I remember now.
If you have never gotten to know yourself staying up looking at stars, if you have not felt awe and gratitude for creation lately, this is the book for you. If you have not experienced membership in the long tradition — stretching back thousands of years past recorded history — of the astronomers, then you can begin to experience being a member by reading this book.
Eklund grew up in a community that was dedicated to wonder about the stars, a wonder disciplined by science but motivated by love. His father was a photographic assistant to the astronomers at the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin during the heyday of some of the greatest astronomers of modern times. Through poetry this little book helps readers understand why astronomers (and, for that matter, perhaps poets, artists, and photographers as well) spend the long hours of the night seeking the scientific answers to questions about the universe.
It is often said that it is scientific curiosity that is the motivation for a life with the stars (either professionally or not — at any rate, pay is not the motivation). But curiosity does not explain it completely, as all we who do it know. It is a love of the grandness of it all. It is the same reason one looks out the window — to be astronomers on spaceship Earth is to have the window seat.
This little book, through poetry and explanation, very faithfully communicates the love of the stars in the same way that John Muir communicated the love of trees. It is a book on what might be called the spiritual experience of astronomy, astronomy examined with the heart, the unspoken secret among all astronomers — professional and amateur of all ages — that the universe is a infinite play that we have a ticket to. If not before, you will love astronomy after reading this book.
Photo courtesy Virginia Hoge