The Heavenly Discourses module of the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology is team-taught every year in the May-August semester by Bernadette Brady, Nick Campion, and Darrelyn Gunzburg. Although all of the modules consider the sky to be a cultural resource, Heavenly Discourses is the only module in the MA where students actively engage with the sky as a primary document through documenting what they see, hear, and experience in what is the heart of the module, the sky journal. The sky journal research is undertaken over the course of a month. Students formulate a question and then 'interview' the sky in a variety of different ways. They may observe clouds and cloud shapes, take note of the nature, colour, visibility and/or horizon location of sunrises or sunset, take account of the nightly shifts of constellations or planets, or perceive the sky via its relationship to the landscape, the trees, water, hedges, fields, or lighthouses that visually connect sky with earth.

The notation of this month of observation occurs through writing, drawing, and/or photography and this then creates the students' field notes, and becomes their primary source. Using this raw material, the students then draw out themes from what they have observed and felt, all the time situating these themes within the context of other literature. Some students use a reflexive methodology; others approach it ethnographically by talking to others about their responses to the sky. Whatever method the students choose to take, one thing emerges for all of them: they are all deeply changed by the experience of connecting directly with the sky in this way.

Here are two examples, whose text and photographs, used with each person's permission, show the extent of that transforming sky conversation journey.

Grace Cassar chose to use her sky journal as a qualitative, reflexive exploration of clouds. She considered her essay under four themes: the phenomenology of land- and skyscapes; the power of colour; assigning meaning to light; and sacredscapes and animism. Grace was clear to note that her location was the Mediterranean Maltese Islands and the time of year was July, yet despite her willingness and her sharp-eyed surveillance, the harsh reality of the Maltese summer brought its own agenda.Armed with pencil, notebook and mobile phone for taking photographs, on 1 July, Grace wrote in her sky journal:

On 9 July, 6:38 pm, Grace wrote in her sky journal:

Over the course of her month, the clouds continued to elude her. On 29 July- 8:03pm Grace wrote in her sky journal:

This lack of clouds lead Grace into a different discovery. Situating her thoughts and reflections of blue in the sky into the literature, Grace concluded this section of her paper with the following insight:

Grace had further insights as she wrote up the other themes of her paper. Above all she realised that, whilst she had been approaching her sky journal with one focus - the desire to document clouds - through real time experience something else was occurring due to the time of year (summer) and her location (Malta). This opened her eyes to the reality of her clear blue Maltese sky and, by situating those realisations into the literature, she obtained a deeper comprehension of what she had been experiencing.

Not everyone, however, revels in the clear blue. A second sky journal example, also using a reflexive methodology, highlights this contrast. Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Teresa Alfonso recognised that she had a personal resistance to engaging with the sky:

After similar observations a few days later, Teresa gained an understanding that this dislike came from a younger self, one who was six years old and living on the family farm in the Karoo:

Added to this harsh childhood environment, Teresa came to recognise that her culture as an Afrikaner also played a significant role in her estrangement from the sky, that Afrikaner culture contained little if no sky lore, since heaven was God's domain and not to be intruded upon with sky stories or folktales.[1] As Teresa observed, 'the Afrikaner's Calvinistic variety of Christianity compounded an inherent Platonic dualism, whilst also discouraging projection onto the heavens.'

With such insights Teresa sought, through her sky journal, to understand how she could became an inhabitant of what Tim Ingold called the Weather-World where, rather than feeling separate from the earth and sky, she could feel woven into it by sun, moon, stars, rain, thunder, and wind.[2]

By situating her findings into the literature, Teresa gained a deeper understanding of where that journey had led her. She wrote: 'I realized the courage needed and the difficulty of developing a new cosmological approach to an interconnected life.'

The Heavenly Discourses module and its sky journal component is the only place in the world that we know of where in an academic situation, a student can explore their personal relationship with the sky. These heavenly discourses are both an active engagement with phenomenology, as expressed by Aristotle, and ekphrasis, found in poetry as far back as Hesiod with his Shield of Achilles, and thus they fit into a long tradition of sky-watching. As noted above, this gives students of the MA a first-hand experience of seeing and working with the sky as a primary document.

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Kim Malville is Professor Emeritus, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Science, University of Colorado and he lectures on the MA's Skyscapes, Cosmology and Archaeology Module. Here he chooses his personal highlights from SEAC 2015 - the five day archaeoastronomy conference held in Rome last November.

Professor Kim Malville who lectures on the MA's Skyscapes, Cosmology and Archaeology Module chooses his personal highlights from SEAC 2015 - the five day archaeoastronomy conference held in Rome last November.

The conference took place at La Sapienza, the University of Rome. Besides the meetings themselves, we had tours of the Roman Forum and the Coliseum plus post conferences tours of Pompeii, Herculaneum, the Catacombs, and the Vatican. We had a wonderful conference banquet on Friday night. For me the high points were smaller banquets organized to honor and fete Tore for his acceptance into the PhD program at the University of Malta with wine, laughter, and great food. I am so grateful to be a member of the Sophia community.

There were some 60 papers during the four and a half days. I'll review a few that caught my attention. The only invited research paper of the conference was presented by Juan Belmonte, reviewing the remarkable variety of research in cultural astronomy performed by the team of Spanish astronomers over the past 10 years. The investigations cover the Mediterranean, including the Hittites, Iron Age civilizations, the Roman World, Egypt and extends to Easter Island and India. The major thrust of their field work has been to obtain measurements of alignments of ancient monuments, which now number in the thousands. In this conference Juan Belmonte and/or his colleague Cesar Gonzalez-Garcia were listed as authors of a remarkable collection of seven papers. Dare I point out that there were eight papers by Sophia folk!

Cesar Gonzalez-Garcia presented the results of field studies in the Levant by him and Belmonte. Of particular interest in their studies at Petra, was the dramatic illumination at December solstice sun set of Ad Deir (The Monastery). This building has been interpreted as either a temple for the gods Dushara or AL-Uzza or as a Cenotaph for King Obodas II.At this site there is a double sunset event, perhaps indicating the resurrection of the god. Their interpretation is that on the shortest days of the year, the illumination of the image of the god Dushara is born from the goddess Al-Uzza, when illuminated for a short period of time at sunset. Finally, the geographic feature where the sun sets, is reborn and then sets resembles a lion's head, which is the totemic animal of Al-Uzza, the goddess that gives birth to Dushara.

Davide Nadali and Andrea Polcaro, described the orientations of the immense ziggurats of Larsa and Uruk, oriented respectively to summer solstice and major lunar standstill. Their paper was entitled 'The sky from the high terrace: study on the orientation of the ziqqurat in ancient Mesopotamia.' Built around 2100 BCE, these massive mud brick platforms, established connections between heaven and earth. Rituals in the temples may have been periodic, perhaps performed on solstices and lunar standstill. If their interpretations are valid, the ziggurat of Uruk would be one of the earliest known structures associated with major lunar standstill, all the more remarkable considering the 18.6 year lapse between major standstill events.

I presented a paper on animism in which I considered rethinking on much of the standard fare of archaeoastronomy, namely horizon calendars and stoes that establish astronomical alignments. To call these combinations of skyscape and landscape simply calendars or alignments may be overly Eurocentric and mechanistic. To many ancient eyes, the sun was not a thing, an inanimate object, or a ball of hot gas in the sky, but a living and powerful being that could engage in reciprocal relationships with people on earth. Likewise, horizon features or standing stones may have been not just inanimate rocks, but also living and powerful beings. The lines of megaliths in Nabta Playa, for example, were oriented toward the brightest stars of the Neolithic skies: Arcturus, Sirius, and α Centauri. These stars, so vital to the nomadic pastoralists for guiding them to bodies of water, may have been people, with their own stories, personalities, and desires; the megaliths may have been ancestors who came alive when their feet were submerged in the flooded playa.

Estille Orrelle suggested how female ritual power oriented to the moon, underpinning the hunter-gatherer social structure, was appropriated by male solar religion. She based her ideas on Knight's theory that women engaged in sex strikes to obtain high protein food in the form of large game animals procured by male hunters. This flawed theory has led to arguments in cultural astronomy about the importance of the dark moon. Many ethnographic and ethnohistoric investigations show that Knight's theory is outmoded and generally incorrect. Studies of hunter-gather populations indicate that women can readily obtain high protein food on their own by catching small animals such as moles, mice and frogs or collecting insects and hence do not depend on men for food.

Roz Frank discussed the broader implication of the sky bears in the field of cultural astronomy, emphasizing the consideration of different ontologies. Roz pointed out that among circumpolar people as well as in Europe, there was a belief that humans descended from a bear ancestor who dwelled in the heavens. The world view of these cultures can be described as embodied reciprocity, in which animals, humans, and nature are bound together in reciprocal relationships. This viewpoint has been variously described as relational ecology, relational epistemology, relational ontology, and relational archaeology. She encouraged us to place more emphasis on the relational nature of human interactions with the environment in its broadest sense, engaging with other-than-human animals, which like bears were in the past more numerous than their human offspring.

Marianna Ridderstad discussed the so-called 'Giant's Churches' of Western Finland, which were the subject of her thesis, for which she has recently received he PhD. These Neolithic stone structures, date from 2500-2000 BCE, and are concentrated on the ancient seashore. Most of them were built on islands or drumlins on the coast, but they are now situated as far as 30 kilometers inland because of the post-glacial rebound. There are 40 to 50 of them, depending on the definition, which is not clear, as their function is not yet known. The Giant's Churches are large, the length of the long axis differing from about 60 meters to 12 meters, and most often rectangular. Most of them have "gates", which are lowerings in the walls, suitable for entering the structure. Some of them also have so-called "sacristies", which are stone cairns either constructed as parts of the walls or situated immediately outside of them. The function of these huge, silent structures is a continuing mystery and has been a matter of scholarly debate for over a hundred years. They have been burial sites, temples, or fortresses. Some of the smallest constructions may have been dwellings, but the largest ones would have been impractical for that purpose.

The triumvirate of Bernadette Brady, Darrelyn Gunzberg, and Pam Armstrong gave a lively discussion of their pilot project studying Welsh monasteries, sharing the microphone with aplomb and poise. Fabio was a member of the team, but was unable to attend the conference. Their presentation included high quality field measurements of orientations, good statistics, and a wonderful discussion of the symbolic power of light in these now-ruined monasteries. The buildings had a general westward orientation. Variations between the monasteries may reflect different intentionalities as well as the landscape, implying the importance of sunlight entering the structures.

Nick Campion gave a splendid paper on the social and political consequences of Newtonianism. Newton's invention of the law of gravity provided the world with a single rule that governed the universe; it promised order, lawfulness, stability, predictability, and equality for all. Nick explored the consequences in politics and sociology. His discussion brought home the significance of Special and General Relativity in removing Newtonian physics as the supreme law governing all of the cosmos. Listening to Nick, one can understand a little more about why Einstein was condemned by German and Italian fascists who loved law and order. German Nazis, in particular, disliked him for his friendship with British scientists, who ironically should have been more interested in protecting the legacy of Newton.

The final session of the conference was a round table discussion which emphasized the need for cultural context in the discipline: alignment studies are important but it's necessary to understand why alignments were important to the people involved. The panel suggested collaboration between groups be encouraged using Academia, and the publishing of ongoing discussions in the field in the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology. Emphasis was put on the need to consider the agentive attributes of non-human subjects (objects and phenomena acting as agents or doers of certain actions) as part of our interpretative tool kit in cultural astronomy. It was also suggested that we consider relational ontologies, i.e. relations between entities are ontologically more fundamental than the entities themselves.

I suggested we should be focusing on two important aspects of cultural astronomy: goals and balance. What are the basic goals of our studies? Certainly it is not to acquire more and more alignment, more and more measurements of solstice sunrises, which were common goals 30-40 years ago, when there seemed little interest in seeking cultural context or meaning. I recommended we follow Clifford Geertz's admonition to pursue thick descriptions, collect all that we can about the culture, and use astronomy to try to "figure out what the devil they think they are up to" (Geertz's words). We need to find a balance between alignment studies and interpretation. They do, of course, go hand in hand; interpretation without quantitative measurements is as dangerous as excessive collection of alignments without interpretation. Interpretation does require an anthropologist's knowledge of culture, an interest in collecting details about the culture that may not, at as first, appear to be related to astronomy, as well as a genuine affection for that culture and its people.

As you all know, the next SEAC conference will be Bath from September 12- 16,2016. This year's title is 'The Marriage of Astronomy and Culture: Theory and Method in the Study of Cultural Astronomy.' It is always exciting at these meetings to hear some new ideas, learn more of the astronomy of other cultures, finding out what our old friends have been doing for the past year, and, not the least, observing how our field of cultural astronomy continues to redefine itself.

Link to SEAC 2016