Jonathan Kieran

Few people pay much attention to the star Sirius anymore. It’s the brightest star in the heavens and associated with the Orion constellation. It vanishes beneath the visible horizon of our portion of the world for just over two months every year. Its reappearance on the horizon (or its “heliacal rising”) occurs in the hottest, blazing heart of the Summer in the Western and Near Eastern realms—ancient astronomers used to pay a great deal of attention to this emergence, because it signaled the time of the most intense heat and, frankly, because the ancients were addicted to regularity in the heavens.

If a familiar star failed to appear, people of such long-lost worlds were apt to get more than a little panicky. Eclipses, climactic obscurations, blazing comets; all of these things could be disturbing portents and omens and augurs of (probably) BIG TROUBLE. Ancient people were wise enough to expect the worst from Mother Nature and She rarely disappoints in that regard.

Sirius was called the Dog Star due to the connection to Orion, and as a result, its first-rising in July/August gave birth to our expression “the Dog Days of Summer.” Bitchin’ heat, quel apropos.

Even so, no people were more attuned to the vicissitudes of Sirius than were the ancient Egyptians, because the reappearance of Sirius on the horizon in deep Summer coincided with the all-important flooding of the Nile and, well, the SURVIVAL of millions in a bountiful, mighty empire. The entire religious system of ancient Egypt hinged upon the movement of the star Sirius. It was deified as a goddess (Satis or Isis, usually) and its debut on the horizon as a harbinger of the Nile inundation was met with extraordinary feasting and celebration across the kingdom.

Make no mistake: ancient Egyptian priests and astronomers and astrologers watched the heavens and the stars like hawks, obsessed with making sure that all was moving like clockwork in the firmament. As mentioned, anomalies were not welcomed with open arms, much less with the appreciative curiosity we see today in cliques of expert stargazers far removed from common discourse.

Whatever the case, I miss the days when people in general—everyday folk with no special education—kept an eye on the heavens and knew how to quickly find the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, the Pole Star, et al.

Those days existed, my friends, and no too terribly long ago.

Nowadays, we’re lucky if the broader population can spot friggin’ Canada on a map.

Get your heads out of your phones, chickens, and look up at the heavens some moonless night. There’s a lot to see and to ponder in the dog days of Summer.

[Look for Jonathan Kieran’s fabulous new—as yet untitled—book of hundreds of witty, cynical, zeitgeist-rocking, and knee-slappingly clever cartoons of Pure Smartassery in 2024! Stay tuned for developing news and previews.]

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