Commentary on the Light Bulbs in the Sky

What do you think of when you see stars at night?

           What was I looking for?  Look up.  Look to the sky.  Look at the expanse.  What do you see?  Galileo saw stars.  I wonder if that was what he was looking for...  Doesn't mater, either way he saw his future. 

            I can't remember where I first saw this.  It might have been just an coincidence.  I don't think I was looking for a line--NOT poetry, that's for sure.  Perhaps what I wanted was a word.  A single word that could explain the phenomenon that is starlight.  Perhaps I just googled the word "stars" and it came up on Google Images.   

See? There it is again! 

       Different colors, different fonts.  Some are drawn, some painted and some are just pictures with this caption.  It is the same, always the same, in the end.  It is the one line that seems to haunt me.  Haunting me just like the darkness that did not haunt Galileo, even when there are no stars in the sky....or are there always? 

           It is my fundamental belief that one day the stars are just going to fall out of the sky. NOT because they have "burned out" as some scientists have claimed they some day would, but because they are sick and tired of us ignoring them.  I mean think about it!  We turn on our City Lights and poof! there goes all the stars in the tri-state area.  I'm convinced this is why stars favor farms and woodlands... they always let them shine there.

See?.... and look how they shine!...

             I did some research.  Some people say Galileo was burned at stake, for heresy of course, trying to convince people the Earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around.  (My advice on that: be weary of the clergy)

.......He wasn't scared of the dark.  He was too busy.  Fearing the night, the dark, was not even an option. 

Why? Why was fear not even a possibility?  

    Because it couldn't be.

(If you did't get that one, you should really rethink your priorities)

Where is the one place you can see the softest of lights?  A place where light bulbs in the sky can shine without a prehistoric ball of gas over-shadowing a fledgling reality?

Only in the darkest of nights.

You can't be afraid of the dark when it holds within it a force of nature. Sometimes you search your whole life for something, only to find it when you can no longer see what's before you.  The stars always shine, even when you aren't looking.  I think J.R.R Tolkien knew this, I think he read these lines while he was thinking up the Elves in the Lord of the Rings... (Turn it in flagged it in 1937)

  

Fondly Fearful. F-E-A-R-F-U-L.  F-O-N-D-L-Y.  Full of fear.  What did he think of when he looked at stars?  Was he trying to find out why the stars were so interesting, why their starlight was so consuming?  Did he see Wonder personified in tiny white Christmas tree lights that were found in the clearance bin at Michael's?  I wonder if he ever found what he was looking for.  I wonder if it was all worth his clergy-inflicted, too-early and irreversible end.

(Don't forget this one)

Scratch that: I believe there are beautiful things seen by the astronomers.

I don't know if Galileo ever found what he was seeking, searching for and staying up all night.  He loved the stars too much to succumb to fear, and for the stars in the sky he died.  These few lines, statement, poem, words are more of a legacy than a spider ever left.  In the end, the world of wonder and the world of starry did collide.

(Play both videos simultaneously, with Video 2 muted)

So tell me now, what do you think of when you see stars at night?