Being a summarizer by nature, I find it hard to capture the essence of planetariums. Lights in the sky is my latest attempt to bring a thousand points of thought and machinery and emotion and memory and science into four words. And for all the phrases me and my esteemed friends with this passion have uttered over the years (and they have been eloquent and many), lights in the sky is my current favorite. It all comes back to lights in the sky.
And why not - whether we swear by God or the Sun, physics or emotion, evolution or creation, its the lights in the sky that somehow begat us - that lead us - that move us. We take lights in the sky for granted. We study them, learn about them. But how often do we celebrate them? Certain holidays are on days of forgotten purpose, but our daylight saving lives are more and more contrived and less and less natural. Who even would count how many lights there are these days in THEIR skies.
The sun surely. The moon? Ignored mostly. Lightning yes. Fireflies? That profound random of fireflies are less enjoyed than manufactured glows of screens these days. Rainbows, who rushes out to see them? Meteors, who is quick and determined enough to see them during their brief existence. The aurora - what percentage of the people have seen the aurora. There are more exotic, faint lights - you know what they are. There are manufactured lights - far too many yet they are in the sky and we must acknowledge them too.
They are up there whether we see them or not. Seeing them is the first step to perhaps a richer life experience, for after seeing them comes maybe, if we are lucky, feeling them.
I like learning about lights in the sky. But I find it even better to let them seep into my being, becoming guideposts and lamps at the core of everything I have loved and will love here in this life.
And why not - whether we swear by God or the Sun, physics or emotion, evolution or creation, its the lights in the sky that somehow begat us - that lead us - that move us. We take lights in the sky for granted. We study them, learn about them. But how often do we celebrate them? Certain holidays are on days of forgotten purpose, but our daylight saving lives are more and more contrived and less and less natural. Who even would count how many lights there are these days in THEIR skies.
The sun surely. The moon? Ignored mostly. Lightning yes. Fireflies? That profound random of fireflies are less enjoyed than manufactured glows of screens these days. Rainbows, who rushes out to see them? Meteors, who is quick and determined enough to see them during their brief existence. The aurora - what percentage of the people have seen the aurora. There are more exotic, faint lights - you know what they are. There are manufactured lights - far too many yet they are in the sky and we must acknowledge them too.
They are up there whether we see them or not. Seeing them is the first step to perhaps a richer life experience, for after seeing them comes maybe, if we are lucky, feeling them.
I like learning about lights in the sky. But I find it even better to let them seep into my being, becoming guideposts and lamps at the core of everything I have loved and will love here in this life.
