Here in Central Florida there is so much light around us that we never see the stars as I remember them, often just a handful of the brightest ones.
I was perusing Michael Yon's substack when I came upon this picture, taken when he was in Afghanistan. This "ordinary" night sky there tells us what we should be able to see with the naked eye, which is far more still than the view was from my suburban, upstate New York neighborhood.
Does growing up blind to this majesty impoverish our philosophy, our imagination, and our vision of life?
When I saw Yon's photo, I immediately thought of Isaac Asimov's short story, Nightfall, which you can read (or listen to) here. It begins with this quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God?
Nightfall is set on a planet where six suns light the sky, and there is never darkness, except for once in every two thousand years, when but one sun is visible and suffers an eclipse for over half a day.
If you take the time to read this, I predict that you, like me, will still remember it a lifetime later.
Yes, I remember that story from many years ago.
I remember the night sky in rural Gambia.
