Jon told me yesterday, that there would be a meteor shower these two days (Monday and Tuesday), the former being the peak period of the Geminid Meteor Shower, named thus because it appears to originate from the Gemini constellation.
I began looking out for them earlier while at the club, but it only proved futile due to the irritating swimming pool and golf course lights. Rule number one when it comes to stargazing: STAY AWAY FROM LIGHTS! The city is indeed the worst place to observe the heavenly bodies.
So once we reached home, my father, brother and I set up the telescope to try to get a glimpse of the shower; again it proved vain. But then, thanks to a relatively clear sky, we managed to see some 7 constellations; Orion, Canis Major, Taurus, Gemini, Pleiades, Lepus, and Procyon. The last time I'd ever stared up at the stars like this was many years back when my uncle showed my Sagittarius.
On the final night at d'NA, we saw a number of stars from the basketball court, though the lamps around us at STM clouded our vision, so to speak. We actually thought of sabotaging the main power supply, whose box was before us, right out in the open!
My two most significant encounters with nature this year (so far) came in the form of showers. There was the thunderstorm during my first 'mentor' meeting with Sivin, and he pointed out the significance of rain in relation to the journey we were about to embark on together; it's like a sign of renewal, washing away the past and preparing the ground for something new. It refreshes. Many times throughout the year, I would fall in different ways, and often, rain would come, and I would be reminded.
The second shower was the petal shower on Saturday in STM. The rays of light that streamed in onto the 'hill' facing east, lent a heavenly feel to the falling petals, and it was such a gloriously wonderful feeling to be literally buried beneath those petals.
A meteor shower would make it quite a trilogy! But then again, some things are not to be, and, as I have learnt, they may be delayed only because they are to come again in a manner or form beyond all that I might have first imagined. Time has a way of changing things. Perhaps the reason we change with time, is because the longer we live in this constraint, the more we realise we were never made for it. We were always meant for eternity, and I suppose time has a way of 'eternifying' our values, perspectives and lives.
Again and again, this line from Steven Curtis Chapman's song Treasure of You comes to my mind:
"...and painted the stars in the sky..."
God made the stars, he knows them by name, and he sees all of them at once, all the time. Indeed Dallas Willard was right in saying that God is perfect simply because this is his life; his is an overwhelming experience of all that is real and good and noble and just and beautiful.
I wonder, is it more incredible that God actually makes stars and wraps them in the canvas of darkness for us, or that we actually have eyes that can appreciate them in a way no invention of NASA's ever could or will? All it takes is a glance up into the sky to recognise constellations, to bathe in the beauty of creation, to know that it is in moments like these that eternity drops in and heaven says hi.
Even a fleeting glimpse of a dim star can inspire enough wonder to cause a person to count the brightest stadium lights rubbish. At the club, I could hardly see the stars, making out only as much as the famous Orion's belt. But then as I went indoors, suddenly the corridor lights seemed so insignificant that I would have gladly torn them out of their sockets, if only that the real stars may be more visible.
It is especially dangerous for those of us who live in the city, since we are inclined to think of light in terms of street lamps or bulbs lodged into our walls or ceilings. Until one has seen the stars (not just the sun!) for what they're truly worth, in their natural surroundings (please, no videos!), he cannot claim to know the least thing about light.
Life is illuminated not by the nefarious thousand-kilowatt devices that attempt to make the earth a glow-in-the-dark ball hanging in space, but rather the tiny glimmers of energy and glory that softly, quietly, yet assuredly and powerfully, light up the darkness.
When God said, "Let there be light!", I wonder if the whole universe was suddenly plunged into a flood of light... or was it only a speck, a fleeting flicker, that appeared and would continue to shine through?
Oh well, till the next meteor shower then!
Do check out NASA and space.com for such updates. I'll probably study the constellations a little; perhaps next year can be an adventure in stargazing? Now for a telescope guidebook...
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