Notes from my Knapsack 11-20-2025
Jeff Gill
On the reckoning of time
___
With this winter, we move out of the lunar northern maximum, a point in visible astronomy which comes around every 18.6 years, thanks to the irregular orbit of the Moon around our lovely Earth.
This is only the second such cycle I have gotten to observe consciously, thanks to the work of professors Ray Hively and Robert Horn, who in the early 1980s published their results from having surveyed the Newark Earthworks in general, and the Octagon Earthworks in particular, with an eye to archaeoastronomy.
Brad Lepper, then site archaeologist, introduced me to their work in 1990, and when we sat down to figure out the cycle in relation to where we were, it turned out we'd just missed it. So we marked our calendars for 2004 when the monthly swing of the moonrises from north to south would start veering close to the lunar maximum again, peaking in 2006 then narrowing back to a minimum range in the fall of 2015; we and many others got to watch both. Now we're back in the maximums, the peak last March, but regular swings still close enough to the center line or "symmetry axis" of the Octagon's enclosures to be worth viewing, just a full moon's diameter or two away from the maximal alignment.
To view a third will require me to make it into my 80s. Not impossible, but getting old enough I want to enjoy the experience as much as I can now, and I have been. The public events at the Octagon Earthworks have maxed out the attendance limits given our logistical issues (as much to protect the site as for the safety of visitors after dark, but both play a role in capping the number allowed entry). Last fall and again this year we've had hundreds of people getting to view a moonrise as the Octagon is set up to emphasize, a total of a thousand witnesses by the time we reach the end of the year.
In some ways, the Octagon Earthworks remind me of a vast, horizontal astronomical clock. The pendulum is the line between the viewer, whether on the axis in the middle of the enclosure, or perhaps originally atop the Observatory Mound to the southwest, and the rise point of the moon. That "pendulum" swings back and forth, "ticks" the seconds, except the seconds are lunar months. Imagine a clock face laying flat, and not marking twelve hours, but 18.6 years.
Europe has some historic astronomical clocks in public squares, of great antiquity even if less than half the age of our earthworks. They contain multiple dials on them, one tracking the zodiac, another the seasons, another the days of the week, the day's time the largest dial and hands sweeping around. Cinderella's castle at Disney World has a suggestion of such a clock on the central tower, a reminder of how a central clock was once at the center of a community, like the timepieces on today's Courthouse towers.
I do hope to witness the silent tolling of this timepiece, the turning of this immense calendar, one more time. But my hope now is more to spend the time ahead helping to teach this story to others, passing along the wisdom we have and the questions that continue, now in relationship with the descendants of the builders here. They, and we, will continue our stewardship of these antiquities to generations still to come: which might well be a key element of why these were built. To communicate our understandings to generations yet unborn.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's enjoyed some nights at the Octagon when we didn't see a thing, but that's part of the story, too. Tell him what you look forward to at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
On the reckoning of time
___
With this winter, we move out of the lunar northern maximum, a point in visible astronomy which comes around every 18.6 years, thanks to the irregular orbit of the Moon around our lovely Earth.
This is only the second such cycle I have gotten to observe consciously, thanks to the work of professors Ray Hively and Robert Horn, who in the early 1980s published their results from having surveyed the Newark Earthworks in general, and the Octagon Earthworks in particular, with an eye to archaeoastronomy.
Brad Lepper, then site archaeologist, introduced me to their work in 1990, and when we sat down to figure out the cycle in relation to where we were, it turned out we'd just missed it. So we marked our calendars for 2004 when the monthly swing of the moonrises from north to south would start veering close to the lunar maximum again, peaking in 2006 then narrowing back to a minimum range in the fall of 2015; we and many others got to watch both. Now we're back in the maximums, the peak last March, but regular swings still close enough to the center line or "symmetry axis" of the Octagon's enclosures to be worth viewing, just a full moon's diameter or two away from the maximal alignment.
To view a third will require me to make it into my 80s. Not impossible, but getting old enough I want to enjoy the experience as much as I can now, and I have been. The public events at the Octagon Earthworks have maxed out the attendance limits given our logistical issues (as much to protect the site as for the safety of visitors after dark, but both play a role in capping the number allowed entry). Last fall and again this year we've had hundreds of people getting to view a moonrise as the Octagon is set up to emphasize, a total of a thousand witnesses by the time we reach the end of the year.
In some ways, the Octagon Earthworks remind me of a vast, horizontal astronomical clock. The pendulum is the line between the viewer, whether on the axis in the middle of the enclosure, or perhaps originally atop the Observatory Mound to the southwest, and the rise point of the moon. That "pendulum" swings back and forth, "ticks" the seconds, except the seconds are lunar months. Imagine a clock face laying flat, and not marking twelve hours, but 18.6 years.
Europe has some historic astronomical clocks in public squares, of great antiquity even if less than half the age of our earthworks. They contain multiple dials on them, one tracking the zodiac, another the seasons, another the days of the week, the day's time the largest dial and hands sweeping around. Cinderella's castle at Disney World has a suggestion of such a clock on the central tower, a reminder of how a central clock was once at the center of a community, like the timepieces on today's Courthouse towers.
I do hope to witness the silent tolling of this timepiece, the turning of this immense calendar, one more time. But my hope now is more to spend the time ahead helping to teach this story to others, passing along the wisdom we have and the questions that continue, now in relationship with the descendants of the builders here. They, and we, will continue our stewardship of these antiquities to generations still to come: which might well be a key element of why these were built. To communicate our understandings to generations yet unborn.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's enjoyed some nights at the Octagon when we didn't see a thing, but that's part of the story, too. Tell him what you look forward to at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
