Desert star--8 days to Christmas

"Desert Star," 5 x 7 watercolor Christmas greeting card

Desert dwellers know the stars.

It's no accident that much of astronomy as we know it began in the desert.

Muslim inhabitants of north Africa and the Middle East  followed the stars--in cold clear nights where they became beacons...and science.

Go to the desert southwest of New Mexico and see how the Anasazi at Chaco Canyon, and elsewhere, studied the stars... .

Our urban world has lost the stars, through light pollution, through indifference and technology...but

We've also lost magic, and a sense of eternity, and humility, and spirituality.

That's why the fabled star of the New Testament's Middle Eastern skies matters...a signal more important today that there is much more to life than our materialistic, self-centered so-called "universe."