One of the most common afflictions Americans suffer—and it has increased since the digital age—is myopia. Sitting in front of a screen for three and a half hours a day is not good for our teenagers, or for the matter, the rest of us.
That’s why it was such a joy to be up at two thirty last night watching the spectacular Geminid meteor shower— when tens or hundreds of thousands of us could set our sights higher, farther, further on down the starlit road. The way will reveal itself most in dark sky cities that give us a healthy balance of darkness and light, not just one or the other.
As we go into the darkest ten days of the year, get outside—away from electronic screens—and let the darkness, the starlight and moonlight seep into you and keep you sane, keep you watchful, keep you prayerful, keep you alive.
I saw the meteors leaping,
streaking across the sky
stitching the universe together
again in the dark of night.
They would streak in and out
of the darkness, then flame out
like so many around us have
been doing lately, and so I say,
“Let them go, LET THEM GO
to make room for the next,
for something brighter, more sane
than what we had been given
by the empire now in flames.”
-Brother Coyote
