Starstruck

I am not a huge fan of Winter. I don't like Arctic blasts, dreary blah rain for days on end, dry and cracked skin, ISIS trained polar bears with ebola...and speaking of ISIS and ebola, with mid-term elections over, where are they now? But I digress...I don't like much about the cold season, but I would never rain (or, more aptly, snow) on anyone's parade who loves it. To each their freaking own, I say.

Not everything about Winter makes me want to punch kittens. There's the physical want to keep warm with a campfire, no yard to mow, Princess and the Pea style stack of blankets, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the pie-in-the-sky chance of a cuddle. Yeah, just one cuddle. There's the holidays of early Winter that bring families together and a special morning that lights up children's eyes as bright as the lights on the adorned evergreen in a corner of the living room. These are winter favorites.

I stepped outside a few hours ago, with the frigid air blowing through my jacket like I was clad in only a fishnet jumpsuit, and looked up at the night sky. The clouds that had been blanketing the lower atmosphere all day had dissipated and the sky was speckled with points of light. To the east, just above the horizon, I could make out the right elbow, left shoulder, and the first two stars that comprise the belt of Orion. I love to see it this way, peeking above and still hiding below the line of sight. You know the shape it is supposed to be, and even though you may not be able to see it, your mind completes the picture. I do love the constellations of late Fall/early Winter; Orion, Canis and Ursa Majors and Minors, Perseus, Cassiopea...but the most recognizable of these is the one I love the most: Orion. Aside from it being one of the ones I can recognize immediately (because I'm astrologically challenged), I like certain stories behind Orion's mythology, especially his trouble with women. That, I can relate to.

"Orion got in trouble repeatedly over women. One time in he fell for Merope, the daughter of King Oenopion. He wooed her without success. Then one day after he had had too much wine, he stumbled off and tried to take the lady by force. For this the king had Orion blinded and banished from his realm. In his blind state Orion sought the aid of Hephaestus, the God of the Forge, and eventually his sight was restored by the healing rays of the rising sun.

In another story Orion fell in love with the Pleiades; some say that it was the mother of the Pleiades whom Orion loved. Her name was Pleione. The story has it that Zeus snatched up the Seven Sisters who are the Pleiades and placed them in the sky where Orion still pursues them.

Myth has it that Orion was killed by the sting of a Scorpion. The Scorpion is identified with the constellation of Scorpius, halfway around the sky from Orion. Some say that the Scorpion was sent by the Gaia the Goddess of the Earth; others say it was Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt, who sent the Scorpion to kill Orion, because Orion had dared to hunt down all the animals of the earth. Others say that Orion had attempted to force himself on Artemis and that it was because of his unwanted attentions that Artemis sent the Scorpion after him. After being poisoned by the Scorpion, Orion was resurrected by Asclepius the God of Healing, whom we see in the sky as Ophiuchus, the Serpent Wrestler.

There is another very different story of the death of Orion holds that Orion was in fact betrothed to Artemis, but Apollo, the brother of Artemis was opposed to the wedding. Artemis was very proud of her skill as an archer. So one day Apollo challenged Artemis to put an arrow through a small dark object that could be seen far off in the distance bobbing above the waves of the sea. Artemis easily pierced the object with a single shot and was horrified that she had killed her husband-to-be Orion. Filled with grief, she placed him among the stars."

I've always been fascinated by the heavens. As a kid, I wanted to have a constellation named after me. I never had a plan for its shape, only that knowing to be named in the heavens would be paramount to immortality. I remember laying on blankets in the cool evenings that were never really cold in Florida, gazing at the same sky that I see today, the same star patterns and meteorites; the same lovely Luna...only as a kid, the scene stretched on forever and ever, big as the sky beyond what I could actually see. I saw Orion and knew that he was a hunter. He held a club and the pelt of a lion, showing his manly abilities...big as the sky. I imagined what a poet or bard would have looked like, and it paled in comparison to the Hunter. But, oh, to be among the stars! For a mortal to be placed in the sky, is that so farfetched? The 19th-century German classical scholar Erwin Rohde viewed Orion as an example of the Greeks erasing the line between the gods and mankind. That is, if Orion was in the heavens, other mortals could hope to be also.

As an adult, I know that the proper name is "meteorite." But as a child, the phenomenon of a piece of rock or even small particles of dust entering Earth's atmosphere  in a fiery display of destruction is a falling star. Truthfully, erasing all magic and wonder from the notion of a falling star, we'd be burned up; the planet as well as, most likely, our entire solar system if it was truly a star.

As an adult, I know that constellations are not the embodiment of gods, goddesses, heroes, monsters, or mere mortals. They're just stars that remain in position that are seen by humans as what they want to see, like shapes in the clouds or images in the pattern of a piece of wood. But as a child, they were battles fought, loves gained and lost, heroes born and died, all in the heavens above. But, it wasn't children, who long ago, came up with the notion that the stars looked like familiar objects. No, it was surely adults gazing up in the night sky, using the imagination they had as children.

As I look up tonight, I'm sure it's still the same sky. It looks the same. Meteorites still burn up in the same atmosphere. I'm still fascinated by Luna,as she still controls the tides and emotional states as she alternates between being bold and being shy. And I still don't have a constellation named after me. I'm not so sure it's a good idea anyway. Constellations are reserved for those who have done great things; they are set aside for those who have stories or songs written about them; they are reserved for the great ones, the heroes, the lovers, the gods. Not for the fanciful fools. But, as it turns out, the ones who were put in the heavens had apparently died or were put there to be separated from the ones they love. I'm not so sure about that idea much anymore. But to obtain someone who I see as being a heavenly body placed among the patterns of bright lights in the dark night sky? To be able to reach up and grasp that star? That would truly be something.

I once found myself in the presence of a goddess; a heavenly body. She was Venus, the morning and evening star; I was Sirius, the Dog star. As with Luna above, I was and am still fascinated. I'm star struck. I would love to learn about her path through the heavens; her role in the story of her place in the universe. But I'm no astronomer. I can barely tell the difference between a star and a satellite. I'm not a hero. I haven't slain a Hydra or battled the Krakken. I'm not a philosopher. I haven't written tomes about the mysteries of life. But I am a stargazer. I'm a stargazer that wonders, but in that wonderment, recognizes that the position of the stars and planets haven't changed since ancient times, and they won't change anytime soon.

I won't chase after a star, but I can reach for one. Reach up as far as I can into the heavens and see...