Star mapping with a thrifted telescope

By Sol Runemaster

Every Wednesday and Saturday at eight o'clock, I carry a thrifted telescope to the ridge behind my adobe studio and pretend I am an astronomer. I am not. I am a man with a clipboard, a red flashlight, and a growing collection of hand-drawn charts that would make a professional weep gently into their sextant. Star mapping, for me, is not about precision. It is about relationship. Which constellations keep showing up when I am lonely? Which meteor showers arrive the week a client finally quits the job that was eating their sleep? The innocent archetype gets mocked for seeing signs everywhere. Maybe. But I have also seen a hawk circle me three times before a workshop that changed my career. I am not giving up pattern recognition just because cynics call it childish. ## The equipment is humble and the practice is not The telescope cost forty dollars at a estate sale in Eldorado. It has a

scratch on the lens that makes Jupiter look slightly impressionist. I love it anyway. My charts are ink and guesswork. I note rising times, emotional weather, who showed up to group mapping nights, what songs got stuck in my head. It is part science journal, part diary, part love letter to a sky that does not ask for credentials. Camping taught me the basics — how to find north without shame, how to read heat leaving the ground, how to share silence with friends who talk too much in town. Santa Fe dark-sky pockets are shrinking, but on good nights you can still taste the Milky Way. People arrive with apps that name stars instantly. I ask them to wait five minutes before tapping screens. Not as purity test — as courtesy to their own eyes adjusting. Wonder needs night vision. ## Meteor showers as community calendar Two months ago I scouted locations for a star retreat and walked into a

meteor shower I had not checked the calendar for. Meteors stitched the valley while I stood there holding a clipboard like an idiot. I cried, which is on brand. Last week, during evening Tai Chi, sunset turned nuclear orange and a secondary shower began — pink sky, white streaks, my students forgetting their forms to point upward. We laughed and called it syllabus. I schedule mapping nights around showers when I can, but the best ones are always accidents. That tracks spiritually. The universe seems fond of unlisted events. ## Petroglyphs that looked back In February I found petroglyphs on a hike — spirals, star clusters, figures that might be hunters or might be constellations if you squint with hope. I sat with them for an hour feeling the kind of quiet that is not empty. I am careful about meaning. I do not claim ancestral knowledge I do not carry. I claim resonance — the human

impulse to mark sky on stone so we remember we are small and included. Those carvings are feeding my conference Tai Chi session and a celestial art collaboration with a local painter who attended my astrology workshop. She heard me talk about the petroglyphs and said, 'I want to paint what you see when you look up.' I said yes before my impostor syndrome finished its coffee. The gallery show debuts next spring. I am contributing stories, rising charts, and guided listening sessions under projected stars. It is the most terrified I have been since I left Minneapolis for the desert. Good sign. ## Astrology without armor I guide astrology workshops, which surprises people who think innocence means naivete. I know the math well enough. I also know clients need metaphor more than ephemeris tables at nine pm on a Thursday. Star mapping informs my readings. Not because every Leo needs a lecture

on Arcturus, but because looking up reminds querents they are inside a story larger than their inbox. Kabbalah and Theosophy live on my shelves beside camping manuals. I borrow language from all of them and try to return it cleaned. The goal is never to win debates. The goal is to help someone breathe. ## Closing Reflection You do not need expert credentials to belong under the sky. You need curiosity and a willingness to be wrong in public. If you are in Santa Fe and Wednesday feels heavy, message me. Bring a blanket. I will loan you the scratchy telescope and we will argue gently about whether that bright point is a star or a satellite. Until next time 🌙 — look up before the apps tell you what you are seeing. Your eyes deserve the first word.