Venus is at its brightest tonight, which means that now it will start to fade. The dimming evening star will start to sink slowly each night into the horizon until it vanishes once again from the night sky.
Venus, planet of love. Does this also mark the peak of our goodwill to each other? Will our love start to fade and sink lower and lower to the ground and then be hidden from our view?
Once we thought we were the center of the universe. We’ve since learned the universe is expanding - that finding its center has no real meaning. We are in motion, dancing with the stars, the planets, the continents, and our friends as well as our enemies. The center is just a point of view.
We watch the cycles, the repetitions - the orbit of the plants, the vibrations atoms, and the progress of the seasons. The flowers that bloom, the leaves that fall, the fruit that ripens and then rots.
Our rhythm was interrupted, the rhythm of calendars and clocks - notifications and alarms. The markings of time we’ve relentlessly scored into patterns we discovered. But there were more severe interruptions. Life and death has its own rhythm, the later inescapable - that alone may make compassion fade, when the lives saved are both unknown and temporary.
Come June though, the fading Evening Star will re-emerge as the Morning Star and climb again into the sky. Perhaps that will mark our weariness of the cynicism and we can again show our compassion. A chance to make something new, or at least find a new rhythm.
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