What I Have Learned

I remember that when I was in Elementary School, I was a dreamer. Even though I knew my father decided that only the males in my family would have the opportunity to pursue a career, I remember telling my father, “I want to be a doctor,” and he responded, “Not you. One day, you will get married and stay home taking care of your family.” Then, I told my father that I wanted to be a teacher so I can take care of my children while I teach. I was so persistent to convince my father to give me the opportunity to continue my education, but my father already had his plans. I was born in a large family in Mexico. There were seven children in our family. My father decided there was only enough money to send the males of the family to high school. So, I decided to move away.

First, there was not enough money to go to school; there were seven children and three were males. In Mexico, parents have to pay for school starting in kindergarten. So, it was difficult for my father to pay for school for all of us, but the advantage in Mexico is that when students graduate from high school, they already have a career, such as being a mechanic, secretary,  or cosmetologist.
 
I decided to take charge of my education so I moved after I finished middle school because I knew my father was not able to send me to high school. I spoke with my older sister who lived in Reynosa, a bigger city in Mexico, three hours away from my home. She was working and single, living with my grandparents. She offered me to move in with her, and she paid for my school.  It was a big decision and I was only fifteen years old, but I agreed to move. I knew after my graduation from middle school that it was time to pack and say goodbye to my family.

Finally, I started studying to become a secretary, and I graduated and received a certificate. A week after my graduation I started to work as secretary. My decision of moving in with my sister took place because my father did not have enough money for all of his children. The outcome of my decision was not only graduating and starting to work, but I learned that I am the only one responsible for my education and future.

Overall, my experience of wanting to go to school allowed me to make the decision to move in with my sister. While in the process, I matured early than I was supposed to. I am thankful to my sister and also to my father that I am the person who I am because even though he could not send me to school after middle school, he raised us with values and gave me the courage in order to continue and find a solution. Since that day, I learned that every problem always has a solution.  People just have to continue trying even though sometimes a problem takes longer to get fixed. Also, I learned that everyone is responsible for their future and they are the ones that could make a decision that could affect their life forever. For that reason, I believe that when a big challenge hapens, it is because something better is coming. 

The Human Experiance with the Night Sky.

I plan to write about the experience the night sky provides throughout time. I intend to explore the way in which humans have responded to the sky. I chose to write about my experience with the night sky because I want to teach people what is happening and make them aware of the benefits people could have with the night sky.

I plan to interview my father since he is connected to the night sky. I want to teach others how people feel by spending time with the night sky. I want to teach them about the experience that my father has with the night and also I want to explain my own experience with the night sky because people need to learn about it and also they need to experience a real night sky. The previous generation's experience with the night sky was definitely better than today’s modern civilization.  They experienced a different meaning with each night.

It is necessary that people gain knowledge about the benefits of being in contact with the sky so they can change their behavior of polluting the sky with artificial lights, in order to have contact with the marvelous world that is above all people in the world.

I intend to educate the community because most of the people are not aware of what is happening today. I want to appeal to their emotions, but I also want to make them aware of the benefits people can obtain with the night sky and persuade them that it is important to conserve the night sky. 

It is important that the community is able to understand and gain knowledge about what is happening around them in order to fix the problem of losing the night sky.

People in these days are so busy that they do not have time to look at what is happening in the world that they are living in.

In addition, society needs to learn how people have responded to nature and the night sky. The possibility to change the perspective of the night sky and nature is in each individual. Each one is capable of taking responsibility but what they need is to be aware of how other people have responded to the night sky.

When I watched the video The City Dark I was unaware of what was happening in the world and how the light during night affects society. That is why I want to make them aware about the influence the night sky has on each individual so they can stop for a minute and think about it because most of the people are busy trying to accomplish their goals that they are forgetting that it is important to maintain and keep the night sky.

Finally, I intend on teaching society about the benefits they are losing because of the night sky, how people are affected with the light pollution at night, and how our ancestors used to live close to the night sky. People apparently are not aware of what is going on around them, and that is why I chose to talk about the human experience with the night sky, so I can persuade them about the benefits we are losing because the night is not dark anymore.

Good Light Compared to Evil Darkness

Why is humanity afraid of the night? It is because they associate night with evil and the light with God. For example, it is strange that when people are really ill and are losing awareness around them. They comment that after being in comma, or after they confront death, that they saw a bright light, which they associate with God. When my sister gave birth, she was unconscious, she almost loss her life and when she woke up she said, “I saw a bright light. I thought I was dying, and I was ready to leave my body.” My grandpa, when he died, screamed and said, “I’m leaving!” After that, he died. My other grandpa did the same but he was hallucinating and telling my mom, “I am seeing a bright light, I think it is my mother and she is coming for me,” then he died. I once had a dream and I remember seeing a bright light that was telling me “I am the son of my father, and nobody came to the father if is not for me.”

 It is obvious that we associate the light with God, and when people see light they see goodness in their life. For example, in the bible there is a scripture that says “Send out the light and the truth . . . May they bring me to your holy mountain and to your grand tabernacle,” (Psalm 43:3). God had given us spiritual light, to be close to him, which people confuse and try to be close to God by inventing artificial light. The book of Genesis also mentions “God proceeded to make the two great luminaries, the greater for dominating the day and the lesser luminary for dominating the night, and also the stars,” (Gen 1:16). In this scripture the bible presents information where the great luminaries dominate the day and the less luminary dominate the night, whereas the humans want to dominate the night with artificial lights. On the other hand, the night represents the darkness, which people are afraid of because they cannot see as clearly as in the day. Darkness is a place without light, where society confronts the reality of crimes.

 Since humanity is afraid of the darkness and does not want to be controlled by the night, they created artificial light to control the night to feel safe. In the film The City Dark, director Ian Cheney says, “There is a controversy over whether more light leads to less crime, but there is agreement that light seems to make people feel safer, almost like it’s built in our genes to move closer to the campfire or to the brightest light.” What Ian Cheney is saying is that light is built into our genes. A scripture in the bible explains, “But the path of the righteous ones is like the bright light that is getting lighter and lighter until the day is firmly established. The way of the wicked ones is like gloom; they have not known at what keep stumbling” (Prov. 4:18-19). This scripture associates light with God’s people, which means people respect nature and have good principals whereas the darkness is compared with evil people, that is why a lot of crimes happen during night.

Society wants a civilization with light, which signifies a life that represents fearlessness, without crimes, and close to God. Society pretends to create an artificial God with the light, a God, who can control the night, and finish with the darkness and the fears humans have towards the night with artificial lights. Humans are comparing themselves with the creator of the world and pretending to change the night into day. Humanity pretends to control the night with the light but instead the light is controlling humanity, because of the light at night, humans are getting sick and are losing a lot of benefits that the night provides, which are sleeping and resting, and of course, losing the night sky that connects people to the ancestors and the creator, which is Jehovah God. 

Civilization has Changed Humanity

Society feels more comfortable and more safe with the lights at night, it is something about the night that people do not like. They associate night with evil because at night is when a lot of bad things happen. For example, there are many crimes. On the other hand, during the day people feel more comfortable. I believe people feel vulnerable at night because they cannot see as clearly as they can during the day which can make people feel insecure.

In the movie The City Dark, according to director Ian Cheney, “There is a controversy over whether more light leads to less crime, but there is agreement that lights seems to make people feel safer.” It is the reality in the world that we live because during night even my children want a night light on to feel safer; when everything is dark they feel unsafe and insecure.

There is something inside of us that is screaming for light at night, which could be the idea that people have because the night is an invitation to crimes, burglaries, and much more that happens during the night. We can see all over the news each day what happens at night. It is when bad people go out and try to do bad things. On the other hand, people tend to live during night. A lot of jobs require people to work night shifts. In this modern civilization it is one thing that we can change, with artificial light we convert the night to day where people work and some others have fun.

In reality, the artificial light combined with the night make people see different. For example, at night in the night clubs, people see glowing effects because it is the effects of artificial lights combined with the dark that make people feel safe and different. In other words, people do the same thing but during day and you see the different people look normal even if they are dressed up to attend a night club at night.

With the rise of the crimes at night, people feel safer with artificial lights. Roger Ekrich, a Virginia Tech historian says, “The early impetus, recently as three [or] four hundred years ago, for public lighting was a crime." Even ancients feel safe with the night even though they could not use the light that we use at night, but they instead used fire to illuminate the night and warm them.

Even though the night seems like a dangerous place due to the fact that we cannot see the same way we can see during the day, people change their perspective and convert the night to be a safer place. We should teach society that is important to maintain the night and teach them the benefits that the night has. For example, we are created to sleep at night and rest our body. We are like toys that need batteries and we need to charge them during night. Another benefit is to see the beautiful sky without artificial light and connect with the cosmos because most people feel happier by looking at the night sky.

For some reason society has shaped civilization. The City Dark points out that society has changed the way we live now, but it is important to remember that humans are created to sleep at night. One of the reasons is because we cannot see at night because our creator thinks of everything, and one of the things is not to see the way we wish at night with the only purpose to make humanity rest and feel good the next day. We have converted the night to day, and that is why a lot of consequences have happened. If people don’t sleep well at night they can be ill, by having cancer or stress. The solution is to live the way we are supposed to by sleeping at night.

Humans Destroying the Night Sky

In the movie The City Dark, people that care about the earth are concerned and revealing to the world through this documentary that people are destroying nature by using night ligths. Humans are supposed to be the smartest creatures above the earth, but what they chose to do is destroy the earth.  In reality, humans are the ones responsible for the world that we live in.

Before seeing the film, I didn’t realize why the birds were dying every day. I thought they died because they were sick, but I never asked what kind of sickness they have. I was surprised when I saw in the film how every year they found thousands of dead birds that were crashing into buildings. It was fascinating to see the turtles hatch, but it was very sad that more than half of the turtles die because they didn’t make it to the ocean. They were disoriented, following the light of the city instead of the light of the moon in order to find the ocean.

 In the film The City Dark, Ian Cheney says “what do we lose when we lose the night?” I believe that humans need the night sky the same way animals do. While watching the turtles hatch in the film, the newborn turtles use the night light of the moon for guidance to go back to the ocean. The same way the turtles use the night sky is why thousands of animals were created to live at night. As a result, if small animals can follow the night sky when they are just born and humans can feel peace in their heart by watching the night sky it is because it is a connection that society doesn’t realize. I wonder how our ancestors could watch the night sky. They probably had the opportunity to see the sky with a better view and understanding the connection between the night sky and humanity.

The night sky hides a marvelous world, and by seeing the night sky we can remember that people are not the center of the earth, which is more than humanity. The world is full of thousands of different species and some of them are very small that we can hardly see them, like ants, spiders or garden worms. For example, a garden worm is necessary for good soil, the same way thousands of species are in the earth for some reason and we have to learn to share the world with them instead of trying to destroy them. In The City Dark film, Ian Cheney says he felt like he “was at the center of the world.” Humanity is forgetting about how big is the world and are focusing on the wrong things. The world is not composed with only humans. If humanity could just open their eyes and see how big the universe is then they will see how people are like the size of a worm and the earth is like the garden soil compared to the universe.

Overall, after watching the film, I realize that humans are the most danger species on the earth, not the snakes nor the scorpions. Humans are the ones that are working in order to destroy the earth by trying to find happiness in the wrong things. For example, humans are building the glamour of the city with night lights, while forgetting that other species use the light of the stars or the light of the moon for guidance. Also forgetting that behind us there is a generation that is going to need a place to live.

Stars in the Night Sky

 When I was a little girl I had many adventures and one of the adventures that I had was watching the stars at night. I remember laying down on the floor with my brother, Isidro. We watched the sky and tried to count the stars during night but it was an impossible mission. We could see thousands of stars or even millions filling the sky. I remember each night the stars were different. They had that brilliant white color and some of the stars were not that brilliant. I even watched something falling from the sky. My father told me that stars die and fall, and that was the light that we saw coming to the earth. He said every time we see a star fall down we can ask for one wish.

My brother and I enjoyed playing at night with the sky. We could see designs in the sky, like faces, and we believe that maybe angels were watching over the earth. Where I come from is a small town close to the mountains. I remember when my family would come over to visit; since we could not fit inside the house, we slept outside, sometimes on the front porch and sometimes on the top of the house. Since, in Mexico, the houses are different, the roof of the houses are straight like a sheet made out of concrete. I enjoyed the night back then because the world was not as dangerous as it is today. I remember sleeping outside under the sky without a worry in the world. I remember feeling that joy to be outside and close to the sky.

Now that I’m an adult and live in a different country, I wonder what the sky at night looks like, and since I have a little girl that is eleven years old, she is as adventurous as me. She likes to run and play outside and enjoy the nature. We decided to purchase a telescope to watch the moon. My daughter and my son were so excited to see the moon. I was surprised with the first impression of how the moon looks under the eye of the telescope. It was like a piece of rock but perfect with craters all over. I saw the starts and the moon when I was little but not that close. We tried to see the starts but we only could see a bright light.

Since this project is to watch the sky, I watched the sky during spring break almost every day and I noticed that there are not that many stars in the sky and I can even count them. My first day when I was at the park around 7:00 p. m., I saw the sky which was very light blue, almost white in color but with a blue tone. I saw white clouds around the sky. Then by 7:30 p.m. I only could see one tiny little star that wasn’t that brilliant, and then by 8:00 p.m. the sky was a beautiful shade of dark blue, like in the movies where they show the blue of the ocean. But still I only could see couple stars appear during the night. By 8:30 the color of the sky changed from that beautiful color to just a dark color, and the only light I saw was the light that the park uses for illumination. Then I kept looking at the sky for couple of days in the back yard of my house and I noticed the same stars appeared. I counted them, and there were seventeen stars. I kept watching them change positions but there were the same number of stars.

In the park I saw less stars than in my back yard. The last day I saw only a couple of stars from my back yard. I don’t know if it was because it looked like it was going to rain, but it was strange that they disappeared. I did not put that much emphasis into the sky when I was a child, but I noticed a big difference back then, the sky was full of stars, and I couldn't even count them. Now I can even tell  how many stars are in the sky, and I came up with questions that I could not answer. Is the sky different because when I was little I lived in a different country or because the stars are mysteriously disappearing from the sky?

Walking with Death in Life

“Highway 12, Just East of paradise, Idaho” by Robert Wrigley and “Reading the Obituary Page” by Linda Pastan are two poems that are similar to each other. Both poems narrate how death changes one’s life story in a minute of time. The poem “Highway 12, Just East of Paradise, Idaho” is a narration of how a doe dies and everything happens so quickly like a fast forward movie, reveling how, in a matter of minutes, life is very fragile. However, the narrator, who experiences this tragic accident, still has the vivid images in his mind of this tragic event where he takes the life of an indefensible doe. Similarly, in “Reading the Obituary Page,” this poem reveals that, in a matter of minutes, this music stops and the one who does not find a chair is hanging between life and death. These two poems suggest that death is part of everyone’s life, that each day that one lives is one day less, and that everyone’s future is unknown.

Both poems reveal that life can end in a matter of seconds.  In “Highway 12, Just East of Paradise, Idaho,” the narrator of this poem relates “the instant the truck hit her” (2). The word the narrator uses to capture the reader’s attention is “the instant” which reveals that life can change in a second. Also, suggest that life is uncertain and when death arrives, the ones who die are left in the past, but for the ones that are alive their life continues. For example, the life of the doe was left and the narrator continues on his way. Similarly, in “Reading the Obituary Page,” for the ones that were left without a chair the game ends, but for the ones that still have chairs the game continues. It is how life in reality is, and one personal example that I can share with the narrator of “Highway 12, Just East of Paradise, Idaho.” Is that I know the feeling of killing an innocent animal. One time, I was driving to college and I was passing under the freeway, when I meet an adorable white dove that crashed into my windshield. I continued my way and left her in the past, but I still remember, and keep thinking what the story would be if I was driving a minute earlier or a minute later before or after the crash. Certainly the story would be different.

I chose to write this blog about the poem of “Highway 12, Just East of Paradise, Idaho” because it reminds me of the tragic accident that I experienced with the dove. I chose to compare it with the poem of “Reading the Obituary Page” because I enjoyed playing the musical game when I was little, without knowing that musical chairs is a game that is training its players about life and death. As a result, each day people are playing these games without realizing that life is ending and that each minute that passes is a minute less in their lives.