Last Stars and Songs

My husband and I decided to say hi to the horses last night around 10:30, and on our way to the barn we saw a huge star. We weren’t sure if it was a satellite or something else, so we looked it up. Turns out, it was Jupiter and Venus lined up together. Very cool!

If the current trend continues, data center proliferation, they intend to also launch them into space—thousands of them hovering somewhere between sky and moon, further obliterating the starry nights. 

I’m so glad I grew up in a time where the stars were so bright, on some nights, it felt like you could reach out and touch them—just scoop them up in your arms. Those moments of being overwhelmed with the beauty, and mystery, of the universe—of our smallness—and yet, our spiritual, and similar, vastness. 

I mourn that loss for future HUMAN generations. 

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Sadly,  I only got one “ride day” this week. It was a Katie Day, and only involved Katie and my daughter riding Epona and Tweed. I volunteered to babysit Pilot because Epona is, currently, the main focus. 

The reason there was only one day is because I was car shopping (yuck!) and entertaining my sister and her family for our last Farm Chicks. 

Farm Chicks is where antique vendors from around the country come to Spokane and converge for two days of farm chicks style shopping. My daughters and my sister have joined me for many years and it has become our annual tradition. Very sad that this will be the last time. 

There seems to always be a non-chick accompanying us and, this year, it was my nephew. 

He is also learning to play the guitar and serenaded us with lovely country oldies throughout the weekend. 

Family, horses, traditions, music—these human things grow more and more important to me. 

As the world rushes frantically down a path that even its creators admit could destroy everything we hold dear, I am rushing equally frantically towards everything that makes us human.

Here is to another day, another week, to touch a flower, hold a grandbaby, (I happen to have a new one), human heart to human heart, to sing a song, to listen to someone else sing a song, and to walk under the stars, moon, and converging planets to the place where our horses nicker sweet hellos at 10:30 at night.