I am standing in the department store looking at a fairly powerful astronomy telescope. I had been reading in a physics article that there is a harmonic overtone, like a musical vibration in the Universe, coming from somewhere out among the stars. I’m thinking that I need to look for the musician hiding up there, whoever is making those sounds!
Have you ever wished upon a star? Sure, we probably all did as children, but how about recently? I have. Why not?
I notice something when I am out on a pitch-black cloudless night, when the sky is filled with those infinite specks of starlight. It all speaks to me of our limitless Universe…..shrouded in darkness.
To draw any quick conclusions about what I can or cannot see is too premature. I must spend a few minutes letting my eyes get adjusted to the dark. Just stand there while my mind quiets.
I had been taught, (or was it trained?) to look up at the sky and feel small, helpless, and in awe of some kind of overlord who dominates us all.
But no longer does the eternal sky cause me to shrink my perspective. Night skies make my personal world expand. There are things about those twinkling orbs that intrigue me, most of all that I may spend time learning about a star that is no longer there. It reminds me of learning things about my friends, things that are no longer real for them, but seem so important to me.
During the daylight I cannot see anything but the choking busy-ness of commerce. The tall buildings and the clouds are barriers to my sense of a far-reaching self. I know there is something out beyond, and I have no access to it. At night, I am free. I can see forever.
Do you talk to the stars? I do. The vastness and endless possibilities of the night sky demands big thoughts, so I speak my dreams. Not my petty wants and wishes. But mostly I stand in awe and wonder of what is out there, not having to ‘know’ or ‘understand’ anything.
I have friends who live in ‘what they know’. They speak to me philosophically or spiritually and suggest that ‘it is important to be the candle or lantern’ and lead the way through the darkness, casting light this way and that. Is darkness something that negative or ominous? Why?
A candle or lantern only illuminates a small circle around the holder. As you hold a candle and move in any direction, what you once saw is immediately plunged back into the darkness that you had just cast light on and glimpsed into.
It seems to me that most of life, as the Universe, is contained in all that darkness, so it matters that I embrace it. It is the source of everything beyond the small circles of light that I scatter around me. Yet it is things in those temporary spots of light that I hold so dear.
I have other friends who live their lives like there is nothing they know for sure. Each new insight alters what they knew yesterday. They are not intimidated by what they do not know or must question. I love to spend time with them because they seem to be the most ‘enlightened,’ even as they stand comfortably in all the darkness of the Universe. It and they are a mystery.
Is the light of a candle more of a hindrance or filter to seeing life as it really is? As we add light, hoping for more knowledge, the Universe backs away and becomes unreachable, like pulling its cloak of darkness, of all knowledge, tighter about itself.
There is so much about each other that we are ‘in the dark’ about and we struggle to ‘put some light on.’ What we seem to miss is that with the wonder and mystery of the darkness, we could have it all…….every possibility, if we but apply that mystery to everyone in our life. That’s what would really matter.
I shudder to think that some of the most precious people in my past may have moved out of my life because I thought I ‘knew all about them’ and limited or suppressed the mystery that they are. Did I use a mere candle to turn them invisible, like the day sky hiding the truth of the whole Universe? If I could wrap my head around that, now that would matter a lot.
Rich