Tonsina Point is one of several points of gravel jutting into Alaska's Resurrection Bay near the small town of Seward. Like others spawned by the melted gush from the Harding Ice Field's snow and glaciers, The "point" thrusts into the Bay, pushed there over time by the annual floods of Spring breakup. Prior to the 1964 massive Alaskan tsunami, Tonsina was bounded on the West by a perpendicular rock wall rising seventy five to one hundred feet from the base, on the South by Tonsina Creek running through the valley to the Bay, and on the North and East by a ring of thickly entwined Sitka spruce and black alder. Four or five acres of a generally flat meadow covered with tall salt grass, typical of coastal Alaska, were concealed from view by these protective boundaries. From the beach where we siwashed our boat, the trail to our cabin cut through the spruce, skirted the grasslands meadow, and followed the base of the cliffs southward to the creek. It then turned right, squeezed between the creek and the cliffs, and followed the valley to our cabins. The meadow and beach were favorite places. In free moments of escape, I often walked back down the trail to them, turned off the path, found a secluded place and lay down, becoming invisible in the grass or among driftwood and other debris as the sea's breeze whispered in the trees and danced with the nodding grassy blades and seed stalks. Here one heard only the errant wind in the spruce, the discordance of beach birds, the softly lapping tides, the rippling of the creek and the returning salmon splashing their way to the spawning beds up-river. Far from town, roads or other homesteads and their associated noise, the spontaneity of sight and sound was uncontaminated, fresh and timeless. On my back, gazing into the passing clouds salted with passing seagulls and gliding eagles, shapes appeared and were transformed by the wind's sculpting hand and the sun's moving light. It was as if other people were illusions or did not exist. Sometimes I fell asleep. Perhaps they really were illusions or maybe simply dreams.

Occasionally, my brother and I visited the meadow or the beach on clear, cloudless afternoons. In the grass or on the shell-strewn beach, lying on our backs as daylight receded and stars appeared in the darkening sky, we became of aware of their slow, eternal, circular movement. In the Western sky we would find the constellation Orion, from which the word "orient" comes because Asia was found by following it across the Pacific Ocean. We identified his sword and belt easily. Then there was the Big Dipper, Ursa Major, the constellation of Alaska's Flag. Our pointing fingers would follow the line made by the Dipper's lip northward to the Great North Star, the unmoving center around which all other stars seemed to move. It was Polaris: so named due to its location directly above the Earth's north pole, making it appear stable in our sky. As we lay against the Earth, the circular motion of the stars was an illusion. They were not moving. We were.

Our backs flat against our planet, on the circumference of a large rotating ball observing the passing stars as it turned, the immensity of proportion created the illusion that the stars circled above us. It is not uncommon to find meaning in illusion or to assume the illusion is in fact reality. Not knowing the difference, we either accepted or placed unmoving Polaris as a guide and hub to center the chaos of our night sky. In this, our small view of the universe joined the wonder of the ancients: the Arabic Caravans crossing desert sands, Mayan observers creating calendars, Druids placing stones, Chinese scribes noting changes, Greek mariners navigating uncharted seas, or African stargazing shepherds protecting their flocks from predators at night. Two Alaskan boys on Tonsina Point were no different from those who over millennia viewed in wonder and curiosity the same celestial illusion and asked the same eternal questions: "How do they move?" "What does it mean?"

It wasn't they that moved, but us. The meaning was not in the sky, but in us.

In moments of reverie, other stars in our lives have seemed, like Polaris, stable, steady and constant. We follow one, usually that pointed out or handed to us when we are very young or, more rarely, that we discover for ourselves along the way, and we become like our circling celestial companions. Its meaning and importance is often attached when we accept it and we become content in our place rotating around that which we are given or have found. And, as we circle, we revere the stable one. Is he not wonderful? Should we not worship her? He keeps us on the path. She guides us safely. Sometimes clouds move in and obscure our sky and our vision. Laying on our backs at night when we experience moments of indecision or confusion we look for our Polaris: Where is he? How do we find her? The question persists and the answer eludes.

So, where is our Polaris? It will likely differ for each of us. Find your constellation: your Ursa Major and its cup. Follow the line made by its lip Northward in the sky and there it is. Polaris. The steady one who guides. The North Star. We see, find its meaning and are comforted. We are stars in our own heaven needing a center. Our Polaris is always there guiding us to ourselves. But, wait. There, far below in grassy meadows and on lonely beaches new eyes look skyward. Brothers and Sisters seeking, like we who came before, their Ursa Major. They follow it's lip, their fingers begin pointing across the sky to their steady one, to the one who leads and guides the way: their Polaris. Whom might it be? It's someone who came before. And they wonder, as did we who lead the way, and as have all of those who have sought over millennia, "How do they move?" "What does it mean?"

Their questions are, and continue to be, our questions, too. To these new stars who soon will join us, who today lay on their grassy circumference searching the sky for their North Star and who will one day lead the way as Polaris themselves, how do we answer? We hand our answer to many, perhaps most, of them when they are very young. To others we offer the work of experience to make the discovery themselves along the way.

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