Sunday, May 26, 2013

Dark skies greeting

This blog is associated with the web office of Brad Kochunas, astrology consultant at AstroCare.net. Published occasionally, I hope you'll check back for new rants and offer constructive commentary and informed opinion.

Why dark skies? Dark skies is the sign off that I have used over the years when writing emails and letters. Some people have questioned whether I was wishing them a difficult day, bad fortune, or troubling times, I reassured them that no, I held their best interests in my heart.

It's my understanding that one of the ways by which soul (psyche) was imagined during the medieval and Renaissance periods was as the entire night sky. This is a lovely image for our interiority. It lets us hold a cosmos within and is echoed by Origin, one of the early church fathers when he wrote, "Thou art a second world in miniature, the sun and the moon are within thee, and also the stars." And as an astrologer who deals with mythological deities like Venus, goddess of love, Mars, god of war, and Pluto, lord of the Underworld, the vast blackness of the night sky allows me to see these imaginal gods at work and at play in my life and in the lives of others when working with their astrology charts. Without the endless darkness of space the magnificent turning of the cosmos could never be experienced. The great lights both wandering and constant shine brightly and help instill humility within me knowing that I am but a small expression of a larger and wiser natural process.

All too often we focus on the starry light in the foreground and ignore the backdrop of the cosmic blackness failing to realize that without this darkness there would be no light. Though in many creation stories darkness often precedes the light into being, I think it more likely that  light and dark arise mutually into awareness.

In any case, dark skies awaken us to the fantasy that though our lives may at times feel out of our control, they are not necessarily out of control, there are larger guiding factors at work in the world.

So, should I wish you dark skies, it is my fondest hope that you'll experience an opening into your inner heavens and receive the deep blessing therein.

Dark skies.

4 comments:

  1. Hey it works. Next up Intelligent Design

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  2. Hello brad! Rog and I send our best. Enjoy your renaissance (retirement). Linda

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  3. Brad -- nice site -- here's my offering on the loss of "dark skies" throughout most of the inhabited world -- posted on the astrophotographs.com website some time ago (needless to say, I see the terminology "dark skies" as a positive):

    Not all that long ago, a majority of the Earth's human population slept under the stars for at least part of the year. Most of the inhabitants' spiritual acts had some connection with the sky, and humans were dutifully in awe of the heavens . . . Astronomy and Cosmology were the first sciences and continue to challenge the human psyche to this day. Within their disciplines we may find a reason for our existence.

    Now, as we move along with the new technology, we have lost much of our dark sky to artificial light and air pollution. I wonder what else we may have involuntarily surrendered. The sighting of a comet or meteor, the experience of an eclipse, even a simple view of the Milky Way; all of these things are now "events," not normal, natural everyday occurrences. Quite a large percentage of the people alive today have not even really seen a dark night sky. Huge urban populations will go through their entire lives never even glimpsing the nighttime rendering of our own home galaxy.

    "So what," one might ask. Maybe, just maybe, such a loss can be quantified, can be measured in our collective confused, depressive, psycho-mumbo egomaniacal behavior that characterizes so many modern events. Maybe some of the source of what it is to be human has been forgotten in all of the technology, man-made light and air pollution.

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  4. Great entry Willis, in fact for me you are the godfather of literal dark skies. I believe I got the phrase from you about a decade ago.

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