Stars

It is cold tonight where I am in Santa Cruz, CA. And although the fog didn't roll in tonight, a gossamer layer of clouds is slowly gathering more substance and obscures more of the night sky by the minute. It didn't rain today, though, so the chill isn't as bad as last night.

I miss the stars. I saw them the first night I arrived back here, but, as usual, only first night lucky - every other night has been either foggy or rainy. Otherwise, when it is clear, the night sky here is embroidered with a shimmering canopy of stars. It's certainly not free from light pollution here, but it's a great deal better than in Singapore where you'd be lucky to spot anything fainter than 2nd magnitude. In the hills of California is where I caught my first, breathtaking sight of the Milky Way like silver mesh stretched out across the sky of black velvet.

I've had a long love affair with the stars. Their luminous beauty drew me to them and, like a truly attractive lover, it is their depths, complexity, being and character that made me fall in love with them. I love to know how, like us, they're formed out of minuscule almost-nothingness, thrown into being by either the gentle persuasion of gravity or the violent collision of colossal forces, sometimes both. I love to know how nebulae, their nurseries, can both glow in dazzling colours and throw black curtains over the light of those behind them.

Many nights I spent lying on hammocks or with my head tilted back over a chair or simply raising my face to the heavens while standing up, just gazing up at those seemingly perfect points of light, knowing them to be imperfect, and loving them for it. In my days of deep darkness and despair, I raised my eyes upward on clear nights, and my soul lifted in joy both serene and passionate at the same time, peaceful and bursting with celebration at once. Armed with maps and my trusty 10x50 binoculars, I learned how only one kind of love can be one-sided and yet be nurturing, fulfilling and all-encompassing.

If stars could sing, I can almost hear the music they would conjure. I imagine them in serene chorus, alto and mezzo-soprano voices joined in wordless aural beauty, their long-sustaining chords ever-changing and never-dying. Not some strange, celestial ringing as some artists have conceived, but each heavenly body having its own distinct voice and its own emotion, blending seamlessly with those of its sisters.