About Dust, Rainbows and Stars Beneath Your Bed......

Oh, God of dust and rainbows, help us see that without dust the rainbow would not be.

Langston Hughes"Dust may seem small, dark, dirty, and dull.
But it's the secret
behind one of the
largest, most colorful sights on earth."

Was Staub angeht, bin ich eine Expertin. Wer denkt auf tropischen Inseln gibt es nicht soviel davon, vertut sich gewaltig, Fegen gehört hier zu meiner zweiten Natur. Vor allem das Auffegen von diversen Staubhundehaargemischen...Während Simba mit uns war, gab es dermaßen viel aufzufegen, dass ich eigentlich daraus einen Vollzeitjob hätte machen können. Simbas Tod war ein Einschnitt auch auf diesem Gebiet. Zu Anfang befürchtete ich, nun um eine wichtige Beschäftigung gebracht worden zu sein, die Vorstellung keine Haare mehr von Simba aufzufegen, fühlte sich einfach trostlos an...Jeden Tag begab ich mich mit Herzklopfen ans Fegen, immer in der (befürchteten) Erwartung , dass dies der erste Tag ohne Simbas Haare sein würde...Es ist wahr, die Haare wurden mit der Zeit weniger, Staub blieb. Und doch, Pustekuchen, - Simba ist nicht wegzukriegen, bis heute findet sich in fast jedem Staubhäufchen etwas rot-braunes, und manchmal leuchtet es sogar in der Sonne. Aus irgendeinem Grund macht mich das froh...Und seit ich dieses Kinderbuch gefunden habe, das mir erklärt hat, das Staub etwas ist, das nie vergeht und dass es sogar die Farben des Himmels macht, überlege ich mir das Fegen vielleicht doch ganz sein zu lassen, die Vorstellung, dass unter meinem Bett nicht nur Simba leuchtet, sondern ganze Sterne ist berückend...Wer weiß, vielleicht sind bei mir ja auch Staubpartikel aus dem Berliner Zoo gelandet, so oft, wie sich Knut Masken aus Erde macht...Nichts geht verloren, mir gefällt das!Concerning dust I am an expert. Who thinks that on tropical islands dust isn't an issue, is mistaken, as to me -and without asking for it-, sweeping has become my second nature. Especially the sweeping of various dust-dog hair-particle-mixtures...While Simba was still with us, there had been so many hairs to be swept off that I easily could have made it a fulltime job. Simba's death marked an incision in this context too. To begin I feared having been deprived also of an occupation, imagining a day without any more hairs of Simba to remove, felt simply bleak and dreary...Each single day after her death meant that it could be the first one without any hairs of Simba...And it's true, each dayI swept off less hairs of her, dust stayed. But to assume that Simba would disappear completely..., no way! Until today even in the smallest pile of dust, something red-brownish can be found, sometimes even shining in the sun. Somehow it brightens my days and cheers me up...And since I have found that children's book, which has explained to me that dust is something which never dies away and even helps to make the colours of the sky, I have been thinking about giving up sweeping for good. The idea that under my bed not only Simba is shining but also stars, is somehow convincing and fascinating. And who knows , maybe even some particles of dust from the zoo in Berlin made it already under my bed, considering how often Knut is masked with his special sand-mud make-up...Nothing gets lost, I like that idea...!

"Dust may be small, but its impact is large. When the sun is low in the sky, its rays hit dust particles at an angle.This creates the the sunset colors we see. The sky colors change as the sun moves , striking the particles at new angles.The same thing occurs at sunrise, because the sun is low in the sky then as well.The more dust, the more colourful the sunsets and sunrises.When volcanoes erupt or forest fire burn, they send a lot of ash and soot into the air. This ash dust makes sunsets particularly colorful for weeks and even months , until the dust settles.These unussually colorful sunsets can occur hundreds, even thousands of miles from the fires or eruptions.That is because dust travels, ...it can circle the entire globe.... Dust not only travels, it lasts.It can stay in the air for hundreds and thousands of years. Inside your house you may find powder that Cleopatra put on her feet, ...on your shelf could be the very same dust that that Martin Luther King Jr. brushed off his coat...And tonight will paint the sunrise of tomorrow..."


Book: Stars Beneath YourBed Find out more about dust on the author's April Pulley Sayre website, teachers and science interested parents will love it!

Photo credits:
-Rainbow in Rodrigues/Silke Bender
-Doris Webb Sunset at Knut's enclosure on 22 September 2009
-Duststorm/Broken Hill 22.09.09

Somehow related: -Leuchterscheinungen am Himmel über See und Land
-Video Duststorm in Australia/22.09.09, Photos Duststorm Sydney/23.09.09
-Poem: Dust IF You Must/Rose Milligan