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“Blue skies smilin’ at me. Nothin’ but blue skies do I see. Bluebirds singin’ a song. Nothin’ but blue skies from now on.” Willie Nelson’s words and voice carry a certain kind of optimism that feels infinite, much like the sky itself. The Glen Arbor Arts Center is honoring the sky with its first exhibition for the 2025 calendar year: The Sky Is Always There. The show explores that vast atmospheric expanse through a variety of creative offerings. Sarah Bearup-Neal, gallery manager of the GAAC, is the visionary behind this exhibition. It fosters a reconnection with the sky’s dynamic grandeur and gentle profundity. “In the purest and most constant way, the sky is always with us. During the early phase of developing this show, I began wondering if the sky—this enormous thing—was so familiar, so very much with us, that it becomes just more psychic wallpaper. Just another screen saver in people’s busy lives. There was a time when the sky was a place of awe for people who weren’t bombarded and numbed by an infinite number of images, input, and ‘information.’ People used to look at the sky for answers to the great questions that plague humans, like: why are the gods laughing at us? The sky had the power to humble mere mortals,” Bearup-Neal said.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, The Leelanau School has canceled all Beach Bards Bonfire storytelling and music events and all public stargazing and constellation lessons at the Lanphier Observatory for summer 2020.

Since the Lanphier Observatory was built 40 years ago during the bicentennial year of 1976, visitors to the Glen Lake area and the Leelanau School have oohed and aahed at the wonders of the universe they can see through a 14-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegranian telescope.

“What’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen with this telescope?” asks a visitor to the Leelanau School’s Lanphier Observatory. My stock answer is another question: “You mean in the sky, or on the beach?”

It’s almost 10 p.m. and the hottest July 20th on record here since 1977. Undaunted, humans are thicker than mosquitoes on the deck above the beach at The Leelanau School’s C.H. Lanphier Observatory.

On Thursday, July 28, the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society (GTAS) will hold a meeting and viewing night at the Lanphier Observatory on the beach at The Leelanau School, north of Glen Arbor. Viewing starts at 10 p.m., if there are clear skies.

Scientific discoveries in nuclear science, practical tips in astronomy, and the importance of Dark Sky Parks and outdoor lighting will be discussed during the Traverse Astronomy, Philosophy and Energy (TAPE) forum at 7 p.m., June 7, at Northwestern Michigan College’s Milliken Auditorium.

This fall marks the 30th anniversary of what has been called “the most widely watched PBS series in the world.” According to one of the show’s co-writers, almost a billion people worldwide have watched “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” and gained an understanding of humanity’s place in the universe, and the paths taken by early astronomers to achieve that knowledge. For 26 of those years, Norm Wheeler has shown all 13 television episodes of “Cosmos” to his high school science students at The Leelanau School in Glen Arbor.