Crowning Glory

6/10/07 - 6/16/07

I happen to have a rather large collection of jewelry. Big piles of it. Drawers of it. Most of it is costume jewelry, just shiny cut glass, but that’s the stuff I love. I’ve been collecting it since kindergarten. I remember playing with a small wooden dresser at school and opening a drawer that contained a shiny necklace. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know what rhinestones were and thought I had found the crown jewels, so I promptly plopped the thing on my head, a gesture that pronounced me princess of the kindergarten class. Silly, but my fascination with rhinestones never wore off.

It was about that time that I fell in love with the sky. Was it the sparkly nature of it that drew me? Perhaps, but what I didn’t know then but to my great pleasure learned later, is that there is a sparkly crown in the sky. It’s called Corona Borealis and it crowns the sky in late spring and summer. Corona is Latin for crown, and borealis refers to the fact it’s in the northern sky, not to be confused with Corona Australis, the much less impressive Southern Crown. The northern circlet is made of seven stars, none of which are especially bright. The brightest is called Gemma, aptly named as the shiniest gem star. It’s not directly in the center, but fairly close to it.

Corona Borealis is found high in the sky, close between Hercules and Bootes. Once you find it, you may get a little thrill of seeing princess Ariadne’s crown in the sky. She was the daughter of King Minos of Crete and Pasiphae. Thanks to her mother, Ariadne was also half-sister to the Minotaur, the half bull, half human creature that lived in the labyrinth of Crete. The labyrinth was a riotous collection of maze-like hallways, a perfect home for hiding the human-flesh eating Minotaur. Pasiphae had known he was a terrible beast even as a baby, but hadn’t the heart to kill him, so he grew to be a terrible menace. To pacify the monster, each year King Minos chose seven male and seven female Athenian youths to sacrifice to the creature. One year the son of the king of Athens, Theseus, decided to put an end to this annual gruesome slaughter. He joined the group of sacrificial victims and went to meet the Minotaur.

Meanwhile, Ariadne had caught a glimpse of the handsome Theseus and instantly fell in love with him. She decided to help him by giving him a sword and a ball of thread. The sword’s purpose was obvious, but the thread was what saved Theseus from being hopelessly lost in the labyrinth. Theseus did slay the Minotaur, and was able to rescue himself and other victims by following the thread back through the labyrinth to safety. Theseus rewarded Ariadne briefly for her help by taking her to the island of Naxos, but there he abandoned her. She managed to catch the eye of Dionysus, the god of wine, who felt sorry for her and married her. He is the one who gave her the crown now seen in the evening sky.

Now we can all enjoy having a crown above our heads. Sure, it’s made of stars, not diamonds, but as with my pretty rhinestone necklace, you can make of it what you will. And now you can think of the story of Ariadne and Theseus and join the kingdom of people who have done so since early times.

Until next week, my friends, enjoy the view.