Two girls out on a field at night. All alone, except for a black cat in the distance, and the shadows they cast into the night.
“You’d think of all the nights the moon might pick a better night to rise”, my witch complains as she sits down in the high grass and crosses her arms, mad at the world again.
We would have really needed a shooting star tonight.
And this night would have been the perfect one to catch one.
Every year in the middle of august, the Perseids are reaching their climax and up to 100 shooting stars can be visible in the night sky! I remember sitting outside in the warmest nights of the year and watching the sky while making up wishes in my head. Wishes for things to come true. Or for things that I wish I’d be strong enough to accomplish.
My witch and I really would have needed a shooting star. But this year, the moon is so bright that spotting it is rather difficult. It was bright enough for us to cast a shadow at night. “And it’s not even full moon anymore!”, my witch complains.
Yes, the moon is waning and still stealing our shooting stars.
“Just imagine you were living a few thousand years ago”, I tell my witch. “And you have just been wandering for days to your temple, or monument, or whatever. And now the priest tells you to come back next year.”
“No wonder the gods in the ancient texts always have such bitching personalities.”
I have always been fascinated with the relationships humans had with the stars. From using the northern star to calculate distances, to interpreting comets as a sign of fate – I love how the dark at night starts to mirror our minds. Shooting stars helped me to understand the atmosphere as a substance, although invisible, since it’s small parts of a comet burning up in the atmosphere. Without the gases making up the atmosphere there would be no shooting stars! The parts that burn belong to a comet called comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle (according to NASA). This comet orbits the sun, and it takes 133 years to make its way once. While doing so it leaves behind a trail of dust and small pieces, and those burn when touching our atmosphere.
I really would have needed to see some tonight.
Just as the reminder that I’m tough and can accomplish my goals.
The things I’ve wished for have always come true.
“I think we ask the stars for things that we have to find the strength to do.”
BTW, the Perseides will still be visible until the end of august! Just escape the city lights some time between 10 PM and 4 AM!
Mistress witch writes 