Constellations

It’s hard to share the stars with a kid in Portland. In the summer, when the sky is clear and it’s dry enough to lie outside on a blanket, it isn’t all the way dark until 10:30 or 11:00. And in the winter, when the Sun goes down at 4:30, clouds cover the sky.

Yesterday we went to the planetarium. We had tried before, but he always wanted to get up and leave as soon as the theater got dark. This time we stayed and watched Wheeling Stars on the domed ceiling above us. They pointed out some constellations.

I mean, I can’t prove its not a ram

The thing about constellations is that they are just imaginary patterns drawn from the stars in the sky. You cannot be right or wrong about a constellation. It looks like a spoon, great if it looks like a cart or a bear, awesome if those same stars look to you like a kitten taking a nap amazing!

Humans are meaning-making animals we cannot help it. We see random points of light, and they become pictures, and we tell stories those stories become myths and help shape our lives. We do it with all the scattered random points of our own experience glowing white hot. The things that have happened, the choices that we have made, become the stories we tell, become the myths that shape us.

Some constellations almost work. The Big Dipper is believable to me. But how did they decide that Aries was a ram? Why can’t Aries be a Jackalope drinking a cup of tea? How he makes sense of the random facts of our lives, the true points the stars in our sky, is entirely up to us. Just because someone has told you it is a ram does not mean that you have to live your whole life believing that it is a ram.

I want the toddler to be able to tell the stories he wants to tell about the stars of his own life. And I want that for myself too, as things continue to shift. I know that the old pictures I made are still familiar; I see that string of stars, and it looks like Orion’s Belt to me, but I also find myself wanting some new pictures. I want to lie back and look at the night sky, and see something new. I want to draw new images that become new myths that shape my life in a new direction.

that’s what I’m talking about

I’m not okay with the sky being done. I want to trace the jackalope and the kitten. I want to see the kraken rise in the east and the bulldozer set in the west.

And so, my loves and my dear ones,
Let’s keep looking.
Let’s keep dreaming.
Tell me what shapes you see
when you stay up late enough to gaze at the stars.
Let’s show each other our imaginary pictures
and make new myths together.
Let’s navigate by make-believe.
It might be the only way to get where we are going.

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