URSA MINOR

A GUIDE TO THE STARS IN ELSIE DAVIS' SKY
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i wish i could say that i chose the little bear for some profound reason, but there are really only two salient points: 1. one of my nicknames is elsie bear because i'm almost always the mom friend everywhere i go and i can get very ferocious mama bear on people who hurt my friends. 2. i'm tiny. ursa minor is sometimes called the phoenician bear because the phoenicians reportedly used it for navigation at sea. the ancient greek name is cynosura, which translates to dog's tail. mythographic tradition says that cynosura was the name of a nymph that was a nurse of zeus, who honored her with a place in the sky. there are several myths that are connected to the name, but my favorite is the one that speaks of two bears that saved zeus from his filicidal father cronus by hiding him on mount ida. zeus later set them in the sky, but their tails were stretched from being swung up into the sky by the king of gods. (obviously this is a very adorable but very stylized bit of art... i'm running with it. i'm also not being very scientific here. sorry, kel, please look away.) this is about to become me standing on a soapbox raving about the people in my life. there's only so much i can say about my brothers without getting into ruthless baby sister teasing, so i'll keep that short. i could give some self-empowered bit about how i'm my own polaris, but really, 'tis the season to talk about how important your loved ones are and to let them know by shouting it from the rooftops, so without further ado, please hover and click on the stars! (and for some good ol' sap, click here for me gushing about hudson.)