Astrothesia (as-tro-the’-si-a): A vivid description of stars. One type of enargia.
I am sitting by my pool. It is around 2:00 am. There is no moon. There is no light pollution out here in the middle of nowhere where I live. It is dark! So dark that a can’t see my hand in front of my face. Lucky I wore my headlamp or I’d probably have to crawl on my hands and knees back to my house. It is warm. It is wonderful. It is totally dark!
Totally dark, except for the stars. The stars! The shooting stars pull threads of white light out of the sky. There’s one! There’s one! They never fail to excite me, like a child seeing one for the first time. My mother said “Look Johnny! That’s a shooting star!” As we sat on the rocks down at the point on an August night in Maine where our family had settled in the 1690s and built boats—from dorys, to sailing coasters and beyond. They saw these stars. They may have sat on those rocks and watched the stars.
One time I tried to memorize the constellations. I failed, like I failed at a lot of things when I was a kid. When I was a kid, I was a little off the mark, but not far enough to be put away. I was very close. Anyway, I memorized the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper and pointed them out to friends and family, like it was a major accomplishment, but it wasn’t.
Now, here I under that same sky. Nothing’s changed up there, at least as far as as I can see. Somehow my dog Gus has found his way out here. He nuzzles me with his big Airedale nose and then lays down at my feet. We are content. I look up at the sky again. I wonder how many there are. I am under the cover of a gentle shining beauty—not made to be beautiful, but beautiful nonetheless.
I look down, and Gus is gone. He has been gone for twenty years. But, when my soul is aligned with beauty and tranquility, he visits me.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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