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22 | THE COLONY NEWS | JANUARY 2022 | COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD By Mike Vergara, (951) 461-2889 Happy New Year! This month's article is a little different. In my Planetarium shows, I often touch on Native American/Indigenous Peoples' stories of the sky. The stories of the Nations of the southwestern United States are my favorites. By cultural tradition, however, star stories for some of these peoples are told only in winter. As it is now the appropriate season, this is the (abridged) story of how Coyote created the Milky Way. Coyote, one of the spirit animals of the Navaho and other Nations, was walking along a trail shortly after the Great Spirit had created the world. Coyote is known to be a trickster, a person who enjoys practical jokes and isn't very trustworthy. Coyote came upon the Great Spirit, who had all the stars laid out on a blanket and was placing them in the sky one-by-one. "What are you doing, Great Spirit?" asked Coyote. The Great Spirit explained that each star had to be placed at just the right spot in the sky. Coyote asked if he could help, which greatly surprised the Great Spirit, as Coyote was not known for being helpful. "Certainly," replied the Great Spirit, and Coyote started helping. He would pick up a star, and with the Great Spirit's direction, place it in the correct location. This went on for a while, and the Great Spirit was pleased. But as is his wont, Coyote got restless. "Isn't there a faster way to do this?" he asked. "Oh, no," replied the Great Spirit. "It must be this way." Then Coyote said, "What if I do this?" And he picked up the blanket full of stars and flipped it so that all the stars flew into the sky and got stuck where they landed. That's why all the stars of the Milky Way are close together to this very day. To find where the planets and constellations are, visit http:// skymaps.com/index.html. From there you can print your own map of the sky for the month. Clear skies! January Sky January Sky Linda Buck Hal Perry Lawrence "Larry" Randall In Memoriam