I set the alarm this morning at 5 A.M. to catch the meteor showers. I was too late or else the trees on the “mountain” I live on blocked the view. What I did see, though, was the most magnificent starry sky I have seen since I lived in New Mexico.
For some reason, the stars seemed closer and clearer. And Venus, which can be extremely big in the sky was absolutely huge.
How many early morning hours have I stared out the back sliding door of my adolescence and young adulthood, not able to sleep just yet, looking at this planet of love to give me permission to rest? And how long ago, (could it really be decades, since I was a little girl living in that desert?) was it that I used to lay on my back waiting for the first of many star like diamonds to appear?
But last night, was such a night. There were no clouds, no humidity. The air was sharp and cold, and it even smelled cleaned. And there they were, so many stars to fill a soul with wonder, to remind a person there is more to life than our day to day concerns and fears.
The woman who told me about the meteor showers, said she was going to ask her neighbors to turn off their back porch lights before going to bed. Light pollution deprives the perception to behold such wonders.
The stars never went anywhere. The night sky is just as glorious as it was in my childhood, and generations of childhoods. But I have not seen it like this in years.
And I have to wonder, how much of our own pollution prevents us from seeing the heavens. Not just the ones above us with their celestial orbits through space, but the ones within us. How much of our spiritual sight is barred from perceiving the divine, because of our fears, our doubts and resentments or just our apathy?
Do we even bother to look up anymore? Do we think there will be nothing there to see?
