This week there’s a beautiful stage being set in the morning sky, where Venus, as morning star, is joined by Saturn, Neptune, and the waning crescent Moon.
We can’t see Neptune with the naked eye, and Saturn is not bright enough to withstand the light of dawn for too long, but it’s worth knowing that this activity is going on! Saturn and Neptune haven’t been this close for nearly 30 years ~ so it’s a notable pairing of the “cosmic memory” associated with Saturn, and a sensitivity to higher or greater worlds that exist beyond the veil of the physical senses (that would be Neptune’s domain).
This calls to mind for me the mystery of birdsong, and listening for what the birds announce in the sacred time before the sun fully rises. It’s astonishing to consider that the sun is rising over some part of the earth at every moment, and that this rising is heralded by birdsong, like a wave of joy continually washing over and embracing the earth.
And into this morning triumph come Venus, Saturn, Neptune and Moon, especially Thursday and Friday this week, looking east one and a half hours before local sunrise. On Thursday the Moon will be to the right of Saturn, and on Friday, the thinner crescent will appear between Venus and Saturn, on its way to New Phase next week. This beautiful configuration has been interpreted astrologically as one that calls for inner focus, seriousness, and patience.
So in this mood, while taking in the birdsong this week, and preparing for the morning sky scene, here are a few lines from Percy Shelley’s poem “To a Skylark”:
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
~Maryinthemorning
Hear this episode of The Storyteller’s Night Sky on podcast here, and wherever you listen ~ and please share! The cover image this week is from Sky&Telescope, and their terrific resource “Sky at a Glance.”