Views on the Stars

When you were young, you always looked up at the stars with wonder and never really understood what stars were. I was shocked to learn they were balls of gas in space and was even inclined to disbelieve it. My idea of what stars were was influenced by the song “Twinkle, twinkle little star.” I thought they were diamonds in the sky, great, shining rocks spread out over blue velvet. I believe children have a much more romantic view on stars than we adults do now. In the Anne of Green Gables series, she talks to a little boy – I can’t remember which – and tells her he thinks that someone cut holes out of the night sky and let them fall to the earth, and those pieces are violets, while the stars are the holes in the night sky letting in the light from beyond it. I know as adults we need to know the truth about these things, but because we do we are disenchanted with the world, and that is the way of life. But I think just to go back every once and a while to our days of sweet ignorant bliss, to remember what we thought the world was like and how we thought we would discover it; would make the world a bit brighter to look upon and make the daily drudge a bit more bearable.