there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.
―
For as long as I can remember I’ve been in love with stars
Last night was no different.
Bright, luminous, ethereal.
I was drawn into an imaginary world.
But it’s more than the allure of the night sky. It’s a reckoning with how small and insignificant we are set against the trillions of other planets and inhabitants that exist in the Universe and beyond.
I’m both taken in by the experience and allowed to free float above all my earth-bound ways.
If I had one word to describe the experience it would be:
And, sadly, that’s what is missing in our normal, everyday lives.
Of course, I can’t possibly know that and I’m axe-swinging again with my slights and generalisations but it sure does feel in the marketplace of opinion apropos of our dominant cultural narrative that we’re fixated with solutions and one-pointed answers.
But life’s not like that, surely?
Or it isn’t to me knowing that I’m on the receiving end of life; namely and by way of example for those of tendentious leanings: our heart goes its own way; ditto our inner monologue; our breath cannot be brought to heel like a young puppy; and grief seizes us at the strangest and most unexpected moments.
You might think I’m on a mission to bring wonder into the world — I’ve written a lot about it.
But that’s not my thing. In fact, my days of exhortation and finger-wagging our over. If I’m apt to invite anything into your heart it’s a more beautiful or at least a better question that the slightly stodgy, anodyne and trite examples that wash up on the shores of social media and further afield.
And I don’t mean the usual anthropocentric variety — e.g. who am I?, why am I here? — but something that doesn’t evince of a quick-witted, easy-as-hell response.
For me, I find that level of mystery in words, nature and (as above) the night sky.
What question(s) are you holding close in right now that are keeping you awake at night?
Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash