In this season of long nights, I invite you to use this blog post to tell me (and others who are reading this post) about your relationship with the night sky.
The invitation is extended with a few ideas in mind:
- to gift yourself a few wintertime moments of slowing down and reflecting
- to counter the weight of uncertainty and instability so many are feeling
- to enter into a space created for conversation and connection
- to share and read because doing so opens a door to nourishment and reciprocity
For me, noticing and documenting has been, and is, a lifeline – a relationship with the sacred, a connection to gratitude, a way to come home to self.
❦
When my beloved and I first moved into this house, the absence of streetlights was disorienting. Now I relish their absence because of what is visible in the darkness.
My bedtime ritual, when I let Asha out one last time, is to step off the porch and walk in a small circle, looking up.
I love nights when I can see the moon, whether she is still rising in her fullness behind the trees, is already high in the sky, or is a crescent setting over the hills across the road. I love dark, clear nights when the sky is full of stars and the Milky Way. I love how the night sky changes as the moon waxes and wanes, as the earth rotates, as the weather changes. I feel the universe expand and mystery beckon.
I don’t know the names of the stars or most constellations. I don’t know how to navigate by the night sky. Perhaps this ritual is its own kind of knowing, its own kind of navigation.
So now … would you tell me (and others) about your relationship with the night sky?
I moved the opposite direction. We lived in the country for 30 years until the end of 2020, when our home burned to the ground. We had my car, parked away from the house, and the keys, with my cell phone, were in my pocket. Everything else but the clothes we wore burned.
Now we’ve moved into a small town, and, with the help of family and lots of friends, we feel secure again. But there is too much light to really see the stars, and I miss them. This year, we have seen auroras on several nights, which is wonderful.
I’m hoping to meet the stars again on some trips next summer. Meanwhile, I do enjoy seeing the moon, and pay it more attention than I used to. But I’ve learned, that even with loss, there are blessings, and change is part of growth. I’ve grown more appreciative of many things, and the chances that do come to see a star filled night sky are precious!
Oh, Joan, what an experience with your home. Thank you for sharing it. I’m glad that you feel secure in your new home.
I’ve only glimpsed some deep pinkness from an aurora and would love to get a fuller experience.
If you are willing to share, what prompted you to pay more attention to the moon?
I wish you many star-filled night skies next summer.
I see more of the moon now. My 96 year old mother lives near, and my siblings and I take care of her dinner and bedtime. It’s driving over, when I’d normally be busy at home, that gives me frequent views of the moon.
Today’s Quote in “Nice News” is serendipitous with your thoughtful topic: Those who shine in the darkness can’t be dimmed. I confess that I too frequently underappreciate the “Night Sky” since I am more likely to see the “Night” in the early morning–this season, of course, that means getting out of bed LONG before dawn tho it also means missing the importance to appreciate “darkness” arriving “early” in the day when I am so busy planning my daily “work”. I am humbled to realize that the BEYOND MY CONTROL arrival of darkness is a reminder that I am being offered a gift of LOVE should I choose to accept a “slowing in my life” with more openness. Thank you for the invitation.
Now I’ll think of the arrival of darkness as a gift of love. Thank you for that, Nancie.
Well, dear friend of many years, we ARE receiptants of many great gifts, huh–and yes, let’s celebrate those those DAILY meeting of night and day lights to guide our paths and memories of those who are no longer walking the paths except in our hearts! What does Asha “make” of the dark/light skies — helps her vision or delay it?
I don’t know about helping or delaying her vision, only that she can see much better in the dark than I can!
Last night we had a full moon and it was HUGE, like a shiny silver coin.
I live in Denver, Colorado and unfortunately we don’t get to see the full night sky because of all the light. But when we visit a rural area, one of our favorite things to do is to go outside and just look at all the stars.
Such a good reminder that the universe is a large, mysterious place and human beings are a very tiny part of it all.
The supermoon last night was amazing, wasn’t she? I went to watch her rise, but it was too cloudy and still light (so I couldn’t see a glow behind the clouds like I sometimes do.) But later in my walk I saw a gorgeous golden globe with pink sunset clouds. I looked for her again before bed (by which time the sky was clear) and when I woke up during the night. With the recent snow, it was sooooo light outside.
Do you get to see the brightest stars there in Denver?
Thank you, Marilyn.
My relationship with the night sky is powerful beginning when I went to my first nighttime Beach Bonfires at the age 6 at my grandmother’s cottage on the Great Lake o Lake Huron. It was there I was awed by the night sky, the moon, the stars and the epic sunsets and moon sets that seemed to dip into and go down right into Lake Huron. The lake so grand and wide taking up the whole western horizon as though it were the ocean. Lying on my back with my cousins doing the same we’d shout out ever shooting star that we saw.
When we got our first dog Babu and later Cheffy we’d walk in the dark on our dark country road most nights finding our way by moonlight and the stars and by our senses in the pitch black.
This ritual became a nightly thing for me even after they passed. Each night I turn out the lights inside out onto our unlit porch into the darkness to look up at the sky whether clear or rainy. I ask the beings of light to help me and give them thanks. During full moons I am more able to commune with those who have passed and my ancestors although they are always accessible to me in the night sky and the light of Orion.
This ritual is my goodnight kiss when I give thanks to the skies and the heavens and when I receive their love and blessings. It brings me a calm settled all over feeling to help me head off to sleep.
Thank you for all this, Maggie.
Your description of the setting moon look like she’s dipping into the lake is so beautiful. And your nightly ritual, so nourishing.
By the way, I recently noticed that Orion, one of the few constellations I know, has come back into view. Now I will associate him with you!
Thank you Marilyn.
Yes, Orion can be seen in the night sky again by early to mid November and disappears after mid -ish April. It’s still there but is rising and setting during hours we aren’t awake or during the daytime hours when we can’t see it from April – November
Maggie,
This brought tears to my eyes, so beautifully written …
“During full moons I am more able to commune with those who have passed and my ancestors although they are always accessible to me in the night sky and the light of Orion.
“This ritual is my goodnight kiss when I give thanks to the skies and the heavens and when I receive their love and blessings.”
**
I experience something similar, although it is not a ritual and not the full moon. When the moon is a thin crescent, I feel my grandmother with me. It’s not a memory or anything sentimental (I have no childhood or adult connection between her and the moon).
It just started happening.
I feel her presence. I love how you put it ” when I receive their love and blessings.” Maybe that’s it.
Thank you for helping me find a way to express what has been impossible for nearly 30 years.
Oh, Marilyn, I love this prompt!
Since moving to our Ozark farm, the night sky has become a place of deep connection for me. With no light pollution, the stars feel like a sheltering canopy rather than distant points of light — companions, really, especially on the nights when I’ve kept vigil over laboring ewes in the small hours.
During lambing season, I’m often outside on those cold, clear nights when the Milky Way is bright and the farm is utterly still. In those moments, time seems to pause. I feel suspended with the stars, held in a vast quiet that is somehow both personal and cosmic.
I don’t look for constellations, though I love spotting Venus over the western ridge or watching how the moon shifts her rising place with the seasons. Some nights she casts shadows across the pasture; other nights the darkness is wide and full.
And then a sheep rustles, pulling me back to the barn — but I return carrying a little of that vast stillness inside me.
Oh, Lyn, I love the image of the night sky as a sheltering canopy. And that you carry some of the vast stillness back into the barn with you. Thank you for sharing your experience.
i like walking at night. for a long time i noticed the outlines of things against the blue-black sky. one night i noticed — and experienced — something extraordinarily different
—
11pm
high marine winds
push low clouds
firm fast bright
beneath invisible stars
our footsteps echo
we are violet sounds
we become night sky
**
Thank you for sharing your extraordinarily different experience and poem, Adel. When I got outside at night, I will listen for – and perhaps become – violet sounds.
I love a clear night sky too. I don’t really know the names of the stars or constellations either, but maybe that’s part of the wonder – it just feels like a huge mystery overhead. I often find myself staring up and wondering who might be looking back down at me from somewhere out there, and where the ISS is as it silently sweeps over us, with people in that little bright dot working on experiments in space while the rest of us are going about our ordinary evenings. It’s a comforting thought, somehow – that we’re all under the same sky, connected by that darkness and those pinpricks of light.
I’ve also wondered if not knowing most of the names of the stars and constellations contributes to a sense of wonder. But then again, learning the names of trees and flowers and ferns and birds and more hasn’t diminished the wonder I feel in their presence!
I’m grateful to be under the same sky as you!
Sometimes, the colors you see in the night sky are so elusive…and the wait to see them again seems impossible …
Create the colors within…see the pinks and oranges in the rising sun… the greens and purples at sunset… and you if those colors aren’t visual… imagine them and feel giddy…
On one of our afternoon walks this week, I saw sunset gold between the trees and later, stripes of blue and pink and purple in the eastern sky. Such a gift.
When I feel overwhelmed by my life and the world, I take my dog Bear outside and look to the stars and moon and reflect that they have seen truly everything in our world’s history. They are our one true constant.
This essay and all the responses have been a gift unto themselves to read this morning.
In Anchorage, AK we see the night sky in all it’s depth and mystery only part of the year. Cloud cover more often than not throughout the year, long daylight in the warm season, and city light pollution preclude year-round looks at the “sheltering canopy” (thank you for that wonderful description, Lyn!).
When we do see it, usually on an adventure out to the wild lands, there’s nothing to say. I only stare with wide eyes, embracing a quiet stillness.
No matter where on this planet I am, in that darkness I love seeing silhouetted natural forms such as trees, mountain shapes, meadows, tall grasses and flowers against a backdrop of cobalt and paynes gray filled with stars.
Even better is when a gentle, warming breeze and the sounds of night insects are circulating around me.
Thank you for this prompt, Marilyn. I can’t wait to move home and see the night sky more regularly.
You’re most welcome, Sandy. Thank YOU for sharing your experience, and also bringing seasonal changes into the the conversation. I can relate to your experience of “there’s nothing to say,” although my awe sometimes slips out into “Wow!”
One of my quirks or traits throughout my life is that I have been off center to many societal beliefs or customs . As I thought about my feelings /reactions to the night sky I realized that I don’t get much of a feeling from it . I was living in northern NH for 7 years and there were myriad Stars every night but I still did not sit and gaze . Certain phases or juxtapositions of the Moon intrigue me . When I was in Druid training we had to dig our own grave and sleep in it . I awoke at some point and pulled the blanket that was over my grave off and at that very second a Shooting Star Blazed across the sky above me . So I would say that it’s not that I don’t have a connection to the sky, it just isn’t front forward . It took me a while to write this because I was trying to find 2 poems i had written about seeing the moon early in the morning , which moved me more than the dark star filled sky .I also witnessed a wonderful early morning Moon event while driving up Long Plain Rd in Whately . A storm had passed thru in the night and the cloud bank was leaving the area . The edge of the clouds was over the farm fields along the road and the sky was revealed in a pale blue sliver over the horizon to the west . Between the pale blue sky horizon and the cloud bank sat the not quite full waxing moon . It seemed a wonderful whimsical sight . I still have an ambition to create a needle felted version of it. So sayeth the Druid Errant OwlWing
I appreciate the honesty of what you’ve written, Druid Errant OwlWing. It’s an important reminder that what moves one person won’t necessarily move or be “front forward” for someone else. What a beautiful image of the almost full moon above the fields between the pale blue horizon and the cloud bank.
I have to admit my initial response to your invitation was eagerness. And then I found myself resisting, which was wildly unexpected & felt odd. I LOVE the night sky. Always have & suspect I always will. It thrills me. Instantly transports me into a soft & rapturous state of timeless awe. Feeds & nourishes me in ways I don’t even have words for. Always had, ever since I was a girl growing up on a farm in south-west Ontario who’d sneak out of the house in the ‘dead of night’ (mom’s words, not mine) to lay on the land & commune with the stars (and everything alive in the night) for hours.
Makes sense given I am, among other things, an astrologer. So why the resistance?
Took a bit to ‘swim’ my way down into the why. Turns out my heart wanted to maintain & protect our privacy. Our intimacy. So much of my relationship with our skies is part of my public work life, as needs to be. But the parts that are just for me want to remain just for me. Just for us. Like what needs to stay between ‘us’ with a beloved, if you know what I mean.
So I hope you’ll forgive me for not saying more than I have. And for your thoughtful invitation, because it helped me make contact with my love in ways I didn’t know I needed.
Lissa, I love that you took your time with this invitation and the clarity you found upon “swimming” down into the why of your resistance. Thank you for protecting your deep love of the night sky.
Lissa, I love that you took your time with this invitation and the clarity you found upon “swimming” down into the why of your resistance. Thank you for protecting your deep love of the night sky.