This week brings the first New Moon of the New Year, Wednesday, January 29th, which marks the Year of the Snake in the Chinese festival calendar, a complex symbol, signifying death and destruction or a resurrection of life forces because snakes periodically shed their skin. Most likely it’ll be both ~ the death of an old way of being to make way for what’s new.
This Monday, January 27th marks the date that the poet Dante was sentenced to exile. Though this was devastating for him, the 700 years of impact resulting from the life work he then undertook is still a sublime gift for humanity.
Dante was acutely aware of the star knowledge of his day, and his Divine Comedy arrived on the world stage at a time when Earth was still the center of the universe, and was central to the attention of a living cosmos populated by divine beings.
At the end of the Inferno, Dante and Virgil emerge from the writhing pit and are able to see once more see the stars. At the top of the Mountain of Purgatory, Dante and Beatrice are at last pure and prepared to leap up to the stars. Then in the Paradise, Dante witnesses the godhead as love, the love that moves the Sun and the other stars.
From witnessing the stars, to leaping up the stars, to knowing the stars as the ultimate expression of the divine, Dante demonstrates that the path to what’s highest, most good, and true is always undertaken in harmony with the stars.
With deepest gratitude to the folks at Interlochen Public Radio,
Mary
This will be the final episode to air of the Storyteller’s Night Sky on Interlochen Public Radio, which will air Monday, January 27th. MAKE NOTE: The Storyteller’s Night Sky will continue on podcast, at this site, and wherever you listen (search Storyteller’s Night Sky on Apple, Spotify, pod bean, and other platforms). Please spread the word and the star shine! Cover image by William Blake, depicting Dante’s adoration of the divine.