seeing.

Tucson over time, as seen from Kitt Peak. (NYTimes)

When the Northridge earthquake knocked out power in Los Angeles in 1994, numerous calls came into emergency centers and even the Griffith Observatory from people who had poured into the streets in the predawn hours. They had looked into the dark sky to see what some anxiously described as a “giant silvery cloud” over the shaken city.

Not to worry, they were assured. It was merely the Milky Way.

Helping the Stars Take Back the Night in this morning's New York Times.

If you've ever laid yourself down under a full night sky when the seeing was sublime, you know how that canopy inspires ideas untethered from gravity.

Most cultural mythologies spin stories from the stars. For the Greeks the Milky Way was the breast milk of Hera, required nurturing for the gods and spilled across the sky when she refused it to the mortal Heracles. For the Maya the Milky Way was transfigured by the seasonal spinning of the heavens: Now a canoe on an important passage, now the World Tree. Always a central player in the story of death and regeneration.

For Galileo and Copernicus the night sky inspired heresy, dangerous ideas born out of its vast reach that suggested maybe man wasn't the center of everything. Maybe there was more than us.

But anymore it's rare to see the night sky. Light pollution from our cities leaks into most of our lives, hiding the vastness from view.

The New York Times story focuses on developments in outdoor lighting to reduce light pollution, and alludes to the dark sky movement, which lobbies for dimming the lights as both an energy saving measure and as a way to restore that view -- and make way for all that seeing ushers in.