About Travel Articles
|
|
|
| Welcome to The Compass Rose, an in-depth feature that explores the terrain of traveling—be the focus the journey itself, a given destination, or the unfolding of a life lesson. Like many travelers, when discovering a new land, I seem to learn something new about my own internal landscape in the process.
The title “Compass Rose” was proposed by a www.ViewfromthePier.com subscriber. In suggesting the moniker, he explained: “It’s more about the journey than the destination. The compass is universally recognized as a path-finding device, with an interesting back story on wind directions. Your site ‘guides’ travelers—armchair or otherwise. The ‘Rose?’ It relates to the appearance of the compass itself, but as Shakespeare said ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’” Before the magnetic compass was discovered, early map makers would draw a small 16-pointed circle on the map, and place an “N” to point to North. These were the 16 Cardinal Points from which the winds were thought to blow and the symbol was called a “Wind Rose.” Almost all ancient cultures had gods associated with the wind. To Native Americans, the wind seems to be personified as divine messenger, able to manipulate unseen energy. Vāyu is a primary Hindu deity, the Lord of the winds, and the chief of Life itself. In Greek mythology, four wind gods represented various seasons and weather conditions. A compass needle is driven by magnetic force, which varies in different parts of the world and is constantly changing. “True North” refers to the earth’s axis, a more defined, firmly-fixed center. When the magnetic compass came along, it was set on top of the Wind Rose pattern in order to orient the nautical chart in the proper direction. The wind rose eventually became known as a Compass Rose. Like www.ViewfromthePier.com’s Peer to PierQ & A, the Compass Rose feature is intended to be an aid in navigating both cultural waters and self-discovery. Enjoy! |
|
Leave a Reply
Every day, VFTP features an image from Meg’s travels around the world, captioned by an uplifting quotation. If you’d like to receive this daily dose of inspiration via Facebook, all you need to do is visit the ViewfromthePier page and become a “Fan!”
