Guided by the Stars

Christopher Columbus was the first known sailor to keep detailed records of his voyage. His records indicate he navigated primarily by a system known as dead reckoning. This system relied on observation and timekeeping. A sailor would use they last known position to trace his course to the end of the day. That position would then be used as the next day's starting point.

In order for this to be even remotely accurate, the sailor would need to determine how far they had traveled during the day. This would be based on speed and time. (Distance = Speed x Time, e.g. 55 mph x 2 hrs = 110 miles.) The problem with this system is there wasn't an accurate way of keeping track of either time or speed.

In the middle of the ocean, there aren't a lot of land masses by which to navigate. They would have to have relied on the position of the stars, moon and sun. But in these days, celestial navigation was in its early infancy.

Further, there was little to depend upon for keeping track of time. Accurate clocks had not yet been developed, so the sailors were left to depend on hourglasses. The hourglass was to be turned each half hour by the ship's boy. Since the glass was always running either a little slow or a little fast, the glass would be trued up by the rising or setting sun or midnight.

Midnight was determined by using a nocturnal, a tool which told the time of night by the rotation of stars around the Celestial Pole.

Accurate distance tracking was also impeded by both storms and calms at sea.

In our day of satellites and global positioning systems, it is difficult to appreciate how challenging navigation must have been for Columbus and his crew. In fact, in our day it is really hard to appreciate how it could have been possible for the majority of people in the known world to have no idea that there was a whole other continent out there. After all, the Americas make up not quite a third of the world's land mass. That's a big lump of dirt that couldn't be seen.

If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path. ~ Joseph Campbell

Our individual navigation through life is much like Columbus' journey to the New World. Each of us has an individual path that only we can determine and travel. Many of us, myself included at times, travel over the seas of life being driven blindly by the winds. We are so busy keeping the ship aright on the sea that we sometimes forget that we need to navigate as well.

As Socrates famously stated, "the unexamined life is not worth living."

In order to navigate life, we need to have an idea of where we are, where we have been and where we are headed. I'm not just talking logistics here, either. It doesn't take much nowadays to know our position on the earth with incredible accuracy. However, we ourselves can be the only accurate judge of where we are on our life's journey.