It was an unexpected sight, the shooting star that revealed itself in a moment as fleeting that of his life, lighting my view in a streak of opalescent white. I stared, dumbly, at the fishbowl of black that stretched over my head, and blinked. It had been years since I had last watched a meteor flash by, that night before the big game, walking across the rocky pier in New Haven, trying to escape the sweaty party crowds and the legion of police cars that accompanied them. I had been with him that night also, driving carelessly, recklessly, through the winding streets. Our usual fare. We had narrowly avoided the unmarked police car, and parked on the street, giddy with the defiance that had normally evaded us. It was there that he had pointed out the constellations, the star called Deneb Algedi. “Look there, at that cluster of stars – they are the Pleiades. How many do you see?” he had asked. I could barely read the street sign as we drove, my eyesight was so bad. “Seven.” I replied. “The Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, could see twenty-one stars there. That’s how powerful his eyesight was,” he remarked, his eyes lit up. I had looked back up at the sky and squinted, trying to judge whether what he said was true or just some otherworldly tale. “How many can you see?” “I can see nine. But I have my glasses on.” Unsure, I had shrugged and turned my attention to the Little Dipper, the only constellation I could recognize. I had grown up in the Southern Hemisphere and ever since I had arrived in the US the heavens had seemed perpetually upside down. I didn’t understand why the first thought he had when seeing the constellation was to refer to its religious significance. I had of course been around those overzealous Muslims who... ... middle of paper ... ...o and made into facets of your soul. Every day was like a little bead on a necklace that I would string together and wear proudly once I was done, a beautiful testament to my accomplishments. But what would I do once it was finally strung together and complete? I thought back at my incomplete necklace and thought of how silly it was that I ever tried to make it. Everyone just died in the end and so would I. My necklace would turn to dust with me. “Surely you shall die and they (too) shall surely die.” I closed my eyes and imagined I was dead. What would it feel like? How would I feel, lying down so still in my grave, surrounded by dirt and insects? The temperate air suddenly turned crisp, as though a gust of wind had come to the depths of my soul. I began to shiver, as the waves of realization that death was a guaranteed end hit me. The souls of every person I had
It was a village on a hill, all joyous and fun where there was a meadow full of blossomed flowers. The folks there walked with humble smiles and greeted everyone they passed. The smell of baked bread and ginger took over the market. At the playing grounds the children ran around, flipped and did tricks. Mama would sing and Alice would hum. Papa went to work but was always home just in time to grab John for dinner. But Alice’s friend by the port soon fell ill, almost like weeds of a garden that takes over, all around her went unwell. Grave yards soon became over populated and overwhelmed with corpse.
Epiphany in Astronomer’s Wife, When I consider how my light is spent and Everything That Rises Must Converge
Sixth century Arabia, the home of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was a place of rich cultural diversity. Prior to the rise of Islam, the majority of those living in Arabia were polytheists (Donner, 29). They worshipped various deities, such as astral gods or their own ancestors, with settled societies developing more complex religious practices that involved a single creator god with many intermediary gods (Aslan, 6). The Ka’ba, a site of religious pilgrimage in the city of Mecca that would become central to the Islamic faith, contained three hundred sixty idols representing the many gods recognized throughout the peninsula (Aslan, 3-4). The belief of most sedentary Arabs in one higher god with possible lesser gods existing as well is known as henotheism (Aslan, 8). By the time of Muhammad’s birth, henotheism was widespread in Arabian towns and cities (Aslan, 8)...
The mind is a very powerful tool when it is exploited to think about situations out of the ordinary. Describing in vivid detail the conditions of one after his, her, or its death associates the mind to a world that is filled with horrific elements of a dark nature.
The constellation I have chosen for this essay is Scorpius because I am a Scorpius so I have a connection with this particular constellation. The constellation Scorpius itself lies between the constellations Libra and Sagittarius in the southern hemisphere near the center of the Milky Way. This constellation symbolizes a scorpion and has 18 main stars,the brightest of which is the star Antares. I have chosen this constellation because Scorpius is my zodiac and I have looked upon the Scorpius constellation and I have found it to be quite stunning.
Walking on a clear night a person can’t help but look up and see the stars. Each beautiful, illuminating the night sky along with the moon, far away yet close enough to admire and wonder. I sit sometimes outside and just look up and gaze in wonder at the stars, but the scientists in me thinks further. The stars are like our sun in the solar system, hydrogen balls, exploding, radiating energy and light in all directions yet we are so far that we see them as specks in the night sky. Then there are those night where Venus and Mercury can be seen among the stars, almost a spiritual experience. Science has taught us that gravity and other laws of nature control the movement of such celestial objects and control everyday happenings where most would not give it a second thought.
Having a fascination with the idea of death and dying is often considered morbid. Death is a scary subject that most people avoid thinking about. Yet, death is a subject that Emily Dickinson was familiar with, and often wrote about in her poetry. Her fascination with death was evident in many of her poems, she often wrote of her own death. What happens when one dies? How do they feel? What goes through a person’s mind? These are all questions that go through someone’s mind when they allow themselves to think about dying. In two of Dickinson’s poems, “Because I could not stop for Death –” and “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died,” the speakers depict their experiences with death. Although both poems are about dying, they both differ in the tone and the setting. The details of each speaker’s encounter with death vary; one tells of a deathbed scene and the other of a calm and peaceful ride to a final resting place.
As I inched my way toward the cliff, my legs were shaking uncontrollably. I could feel the coldness of the rock beneath my feet when my toes curled around the edge in one last futile attempt at survival. My heart was racing like a trapped bird, desperate to escape. Gazing down the sheer drop, I nearly fainted; my entire life flashed before my eyes. I could hear stones breaking free and fiercely tumbling down the hillside, plummeting into the dark abyss of the forbidding black water. The trees began to rapidly close in around me in a suffocating clench, and the piercing screams from my friends did little to ease the pain. The cool breeze felt like needles upon my bare skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps. The threatening mountains surrounding me seemed to grow more sinister with each passing moment, I felt myself fighting for air. The hot summer sun began to blacken while misty clouds loomed overhead. Trembling with anxiety, I shut my eyes, murmuring one last pathetic prayer. I gathered my last breath, hoping it would last a lifetime, took a step back and plun...
The place is gone and as the speaker stands out under the stars, the mind notices the dimness and smallness. Taking time out of the long day, the speaker has time to process the sights seen throughout the day.
Since early human civilization, storytellers have been using science fact in order to create elaborate, entertaining, believable stories about the world outside our own. Often these would explain other-worldly theories. In the more modern perspective, one can see science fiction used more as a form of money making entertainment rather than the scientific form it took before its advancements. You can see this through the history of the development of the science fiction, present day use, and the futuristic aspect. It is also important to look at the science involved.
Human fascination with the stars is as ancient as Babylonians and has been suggested to be older than Stonehenge. From “be fruitful and multiply” to “live long and prosper,” the instinct to protect and propagate the species has manifested in religion, art, and the imaginations of countless individuals. As human understanding of space treks out of the fantastical and into the scientific, the realities of traveling through and living in space are becoming clearer. Exploring, investigating, and living in space pose an expansive series of problems. However, the solutions to the problems faced by mankind's desire to reach beyond the horizon, through the night sky, and into the stars are solutions that will help in all areas of life on Earth.
Next, Thompson turned to astrology. He sought answers to his questions and solutions to his problems in the stars. He began to live for the night and detested daylight. However, he soon realized that the stars were loyal only to God, so he abandoned his interest in them. Yet still Go...
One thing us as humans have never been able to fully understand is astronomy. Always having an unexplained mystery, astronomy also has served as a way to keep time and predict the future. The word “astronomy” is defined as the study of heavenly bodies, meaning anything in the sky such as stars, galaxies, comets, planets, nebulae, and so on. Many people, if not everyone, is amazed by the night sky on a clear, moonless night.
...e roots of the old tree, the star’s light was intercepted by green shoots and small, crinkled leaves— last season’s seeds. Tiny children of the mother tree, they were doomed to live out their lives under her suffocating blanket of branches. Now as they gazed upward, innumerable points of light gazed back. A light wind rustled the miniature stalks of the saplings, blowing the new debris around in short-lived eddies that danced softly through the night.
This sets the mood for the reader throughout the rest of the work for the appreciation that Emerson has for the world around him. He talks of stars as a something t...