I was wandering happily through Cardiff the other day, when I saw Orion in the sky and pointed it out to my boy excitedly. He said that it was just a bunch of dots and that it looks nothing like a man, and of course he's right... but this is sort of not the point.
Think of stars themselves. The Thing is: a star. A ball of gas burning billions of miles away (ten points for quote-spotting). But the idea of the thing is "like a diamond in the sky", a small twinkling jewel that children make wishes on.
There's a huge gap between what something actually is, and what the idea of it is.
So yeah, Orion is technically a bunch of dots, or literally several balls of flaming gas, but it's more than that to me. It's a legend about a hunter immortalised in the skies; it's a symbol of my slightly superstitious tendencies; it's a reminder that God's still there and hasn't left me alone. And it's just pretty.
Orion rocks, as constellations go. Still, I've never been quite sure how they managed to build the image of a mighty hunter around it, even the belt is a pretty obvious start. To me it always suggests the famous dance pose of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.
ReplyDeletethings that are more obvious than a hunter:
ReplyDeleteTHE PENCIL
THE STEALTH BOMBER
THE DAFFY DUCK
THE OSCAR WILDE
THE ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING
I completely understand what you mean. Starts fascinate me. They're sooooooooo far away. Each star is like our sun. Potentially, someone is on a planet, near one of those stars, looking at a constellation that has our sun in it.
ReplyDeleteWeeirrrrrrrdddd
Agreed 100%! Stars are so much more than the rational explanation - there is more to them than you can analyse.
ReplyDeleteThat is shocking....fortunately 4 u i have them and im a wonderful person who'd let u borrow them if not copy them 4 u.
ReplyDeleteThe other shocking thing is that you're on the internet yet not on msn...as far as I can see. I'm hurt!!!