Stars, Suddenly
Stars Suddenly
appeared
beneath me,
rising improbably
out of the ice
at my feet.
Once,
Carl Jung
referenced a revelation
which he attributed only to
Late Classical Mysticism:
Heaven above
Heaven below
Stars above
Stars below
All that is above
Is also below.
Grasp this
And rejoice.
I carry these words
with me
on certain days
when the lumens
are veiled
from my sight.
The unknown author
of Jung’s quoted verse
seems exactly perfect
in their anonymity:
So many stars,
Suddenly.
2024
Stars, Suddenly was another unexpected gift from the universe. While traversing the frozen surface of Lake of Glass (in Rocky Mountain National Park) in December, I was astonished to see formations on the lake ice that looked remarkably similar to medieval illustrations of stars, perhaps the most notable being the stars painted on the ceiling of a tiny chapel in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
The more I looked, the more I realized these stars emerging from the ice were everywhere, creating complex constellations, with the frozen faultlines scoring the lake’s surface looking uncannily like the illustrative lines defining constellations seen on star charts. Taken as a whole, this was one of the most astonishing experiences I’ve ever had in the winter alpine landscape.