Starry, starry night

I love how it gets dark early in winter, and I love Christmas lights. Not the tacky reindeer and Santa sort so much, but fairy lights.

There's frosty blue ones in the trees in the Market Square, and golden ones in the restaurant in the Conservatory Village. Multicoloured ones just about everywhere. They remind me of stars-it's been cloudy recently, but tonight there were some of those visible too, as well as a very bright full moon.

It's like at this dark nub of the year we feel the need to pull down heaven like a blanket, borrow a bit of starfire to warm ourselves up. Athene was talking about how she can't get used to Christmas in Atlanta, where it's all sunny and bright but people put out elaborate light shows anyway; what's the point? Atlantans must amuse themselves however they can, I suppose, and there are worse ways, but I agree with Athene, for what it's worth.

I was sitting and eating dinner in the restaurant at the Conservatory Village just a few hours ago, looking out of the window into the darkness with the reflections of the gold fairy lights on it, and thinking of Indra's net. That's the other thing stars remind me of, stars and fairy lights both; that infinite shimmering mesh of golden beads, all linked.

There are many worlds, and they don't all share the same sky-I've known that since I was tiny. Lucy Pevensie talked about the Narnian constellations-'dear old Leopard!' she said, seeing it again after a sojourn in the world of her birth, away from her kingdom. The stars were different there. But she was a world-traveller, and all the worlds are linked, regardless. More recently I heard Haras-uquara talk of a million lights reflected in a million mirrors, and that's the way of the worlds, she said, that you can't tell which are real; all are, or none. We pass from reflection to reflection. And though not all worlds have the same stars, I can't think of any that have no stars. Presumably there's some that do...but then, I'd wager they have something else just as good.

And all the worlds came, ultimately, from the same place. I believe this; one word spoken, a fount of gold. B'raishith...

So maybe, just maybe, they do share one destiny.

It's hard if not impossible-probably impossible-to know for sure, but when the lights glitter you can't help wondering.

What I do know is that this is here, and I am me, and this is here because it has a position in the 'Verse, it is linked to everywhere else, and I am me for the same reason. And I am very small, but I have friends in many places, and time to sip tea and look at the stars.