Autumn is falling slowly on the north country this year. The maple’s red still at first blush. Cherry’s gold just begun. The seed tufts of goldenrod only now making their appearance.
Yet the sun's path is nearly halfway between north and south, preparing to mark Autumnal Equinox.
It’s the time of year when families gather in, making preparations for winter. In Anishinaabeg Akiing or the north country, people still come together to bring in the manoomin or wild rice, a nutrient-rich staple that stores well for winter supplies and beyond, nestling nicely in years past with maple sugar cubes, dried berries, and smoked fish. Supplies for winter feasts to come.
Other families gather too. This weekend flocks of geese were on the move, chatting as they flew overhead through brilliant blue skies by day and moonlit starry ones by night.
Wolves also begin to gather as families this time of year. The older ones, parents and grandparents, with perhaps some aunts and uncles, spent the summer teaching this year’s pups their wildwood ways. The adolescents roamed more freely, adventuring beyond the realms of puppy-rearing. Come fall, however, thoughts begin to turn toward winter, and the family gradually coalesces again back at the birthing den as autumn’s chill turns to winter’s snow, readying for the pups likely to come in spring.
In the sky, as explained in Anishinaabe astronomy, wolves are also wandering the stars, only these wolves do so all year long, marking the ecliptic or the path the sun takes by day. For millennia Anishinaabe astronomers noted the back and forth movement of what we know today as the planets, part of those celestial bodies' annual movements across the night sky.
Most people from the industrialized world have no idea the planets move differently than all the other stars, appearing to be heading west only to change course for a while and head east and back again. Western astronomy tells us this is called retrograde motion and relates to the planets’ orbits around the Sun.
This retrograde movement was noted by Anishinaabe observers millennia ago. The behavior was likened to the wandering of lone wolves in search of a life partner with whom to share land and raise a family. The path they trace in the sky is Ma’iingan Mikan. The Wolf Trail.
Only a couple days ago, jewellike in the purpling colors of the sunset sky, two of the wolves (Jupiter and Saturn in the Western tradition) rose in the East with the ripening moon. To the West, another wolf (Venus to Westerners, Ikwe Anang or the Women’s Star to the Anishinaabeg) crept slowly over the edge of the horizon.
A perfect arc can be traced between the three marking the Wolf Trail. Right now the Wolf Trail sits just about at its halfway point in the nighttime skies and right now is best viewed in the evening twilight when three wolves are visible. On the Fall Equinox in a few days (September 22 on the calendars this year, a few days later here in the Northwoods), the Wolf Trail will also represent the perfect balance between the sun’s most northerly and most southerly paths.
Monday and Tuesday show signs of being cloudy. But today if you have the chance, look to the southern sky just after sunset. Those three Wandering Wolves, in search of lifemates, should be clearly visible on the Wolf Trail, the trail itself marking the Sun’s Path as it nears the Autumnal Equinox. Where I’m at the wolves will be visible above the treetops before the moon. But it won’t be long before Grandmother Moon, nearly full, will be shining nearby.
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