What a great time for some lockdown stargazing! Clear skies…few planes…silence…tranquility.
I’m hoping to spot the starlink satellites, though so far, I’ve had no joy. However there’s been a steady, bright light way up there that’s got us wondering: too large and clearly visible to be a star. A satellite maybe? Here it is centre top through a maze of tree branches. (No, I know not the street lamp on the right hand side of the picture).
Could it be a planet? suggested DH. I checked. Great excitement! We think we may be looking at Venus. Venus: bringer of peace according to Gustav Holst’s The Planet’s Suite.
I still remember my sense of mind- boggling awe as a child, gazing at a picture of the planets at the back of my school atlas; being totally unable to get my brain round the sheer immensity of the universe. That and Holst’s work have always been linked together in my mind. Doesn’t it just capture that awe- inspiring feeling of ‘otherness.’
That sense probably dates back even farther than that. Here’s a journal spread I made a few years ago of the closing lines of Happy Days, a favourite bedtime read when I was a toddler. Do any other readers of my vintage remember it?
Night night, sleep tight
the stars are bright,
and ‘clinkling’ up on high.
And very soon
the shining moon
will sail across the sky.
You are my Venus 🙂