Friday Ramble - Considering

It's one of my favorite words in the whole English lexicon, in part because of the notions of careful thought, deliberation and balance enfolded in it, but mostly because of its splendid celestial origins.

Think Vincent Van Gogh and his gorgeous "Starry Starry Night"... The word consider hails from around 1350 CE, tracing its origins through the Middle English consideren and the Latin considerare, both words meaning "with the stars" or "in the company of the stars". The origins are shared with other English words like constellation and sidereal, the first (noun) describing a group of stars, and the latter (adjective) meaning simply "starry" and by extension, celestial or heavenly.

Small wonder that we are given to considering. As beings forged from the dust of ancient stars, we are probably never more true to ourselves or more in tune with our fundamental natures and inner light than when we are engaging in the liminal act of considering something.  In doing so, we move away from the mundane and profane and intuitively toward a bone deep and authentic connection with the cosmic dimension from which we came, and of which we are such minute insignificant components.  Dancing motes in the eye of the infinite are we.

It's one thing to consider one's origins on a cold clear night when one can almost reach up and touch the moon and stars.  It's another thing entirely to do so in autumn when the sky is filled with fog and rain clouds from here to there, and one can hardly see hand or lens, let alone sunlight, moonlight or stars. Who doesn't love a good fog, and October dishes out some splendid, atmospheric murks.  Even when we can't see them though, our starry kin are right up there over our heads and shining down on us.

As I motor along through medical appointments, aggressive chemotherapy and radiation (not to mention the side effects of them all), the consideration of our starry origins, our journeying along with the stars and even a good October fog are elemental things that delight me, comfort me and make me smile. In the act of considering, we journey toward something wild, archetypal and mysterious, and we do it with the stars as our traveling companions. As Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote in "Women Who Run With the Wolves":

"We find lingering evidence of archetype in the images and symbols found in stories, literature, poetry, painting, and religion. It would appear that its glow, its voice, and its fragrance are meant to cause us to be raised up from contemplating the shit on our tails to occasionally traveling in the company of the stars."