January 1

Before dawn, bright Venus was just lifting on the eastern horizon through the bare trees of the lower woods. And if not to be outdone, Jupiter descended to the west, above the hills that border the farm field across the road.

Soon these two will depart from the early morning, Venus fading closer to the approaching sunrise as she recedes around her orbit. Her time as the morning star is ending for now, and we will miss her familiar presence of these past several months. We’ll look for her again in the western sky as the evening star of spring, following the setting sun.

Jupiter continues to recede, made so by our own passage through the heavens as December has given way to January. Soon, it too will be absent from the dawn sky.