Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – Helen Keller’s encouragement to use our senses. Star Quotes. (October 2021)

Susan’s Thursday morning note October 7, 2021
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – Helen Keller’s encouragement to use our senses.  Star Quotes.

Good morning!  Morning sunlight shines behind my angel as she is peering through curtains this morning.  Stillness of morning.  Quietly watching the sun change from her orange pajamas to bright autumn yellow.  This week I read a poem called “The Poppy” on a little flower making her appearance for a few moments on this earth.  When I looked up the author I found Jane Taylor, who wrote Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  I then read that this famous lullaby was published in 1804.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – Originally published as “The Star” by Jane Taylor in 1806.  I had never sat quietly to absorb all of the words, but when thinking of the time period of a poem we hear of so often, I was fascinated that she was born just eight years after the  Revolutionary War.  This lullaby would have originally been sung to the Revolutionary War babies by parents and grandparents that had been players in the battle.  Think of all of the thoughts of the one humming.  Did these women lose brothers and husbands and friends and fathers 30 years earlier?  Were they singing with sad hearts?  Did this little song give them joy as they looked to the stars and pictured their loved ones in the stars?  After rereading these beautiful words of comfort I found other famous lines on stars.  I hope you find the same joy and comfort and peace as I do as I read these.  Beautiful stars.  Faithful friends.  Tiny bells.

The Star by Jane Taylor
Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! 
Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. 
When the blazing sun is gone, When he nothing shines upon, 
Then you show your little light, Twinkle, twinkle, all the night. 
Then the trav'ller in the dark, Thanks you for your tiny spark, 
He could not see which way to go, If you did not twinkle so. 
In the dark blue sky you keep, And often thro' my curtains peep, 
For you never shut your eye, Till the sun is in the sky. 
'Tis your bright and tiny spark, Lights the trav'ller in the dark : 
Tho' I know not what you are, Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

“Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.”  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Caddy got the box and set it on the floor and opened it. It was full of stars. When I was still, they were still. When I moved, they glinted and sparkled. I hushed.”  William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays

There Will be Stars by Sara Teasdale

"There will be stars over the place forever;
Though the house we loved and the street we loved are lost,
Every time the earth circles her orbit
On the night the autumn equinox is crossed,
Two stars we knew, poised on the peak of midnight
Will reach their zenith; stillness will be deep;
There will be stars over the place forever,
There will be stars forever, while we sleep.”

“Two men look out through the same bars:  One sees the mud, and one the stars.”  Frederick Langbridge

“Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art.”   John Keats

"May the stars carry your sadness away,
May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,
May hope forever wipe away your tears,
and above all, may silence make you strong."  Chief Dan George

"And at night you will look up at the stars. It's too small, where I live, for me to show you where my star is. It's better that way. My star will just be one of the stars, for you. So you'll like looking at all of them. They'll all be your friends"… "People have stars, but they aren't the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they're nothing but tiny lights. And for still others, for scholars, they're problems. For my businessman, they were gold. But all those stars are silent stars. You, though, you'll have stars like nobody else…When you look up at the sky at night, since I'll be living on one of them, since I'll be laughing on one of them, for you it'll be as if all the stars are laughing. You'll have stars that can laugh!..And when you're consoled (everyone eventually is consoled), you'll be glad you've known me. You'll always be my friend. You'll feel like laughing with me. And you'll open your window sometimes just for the fun of it...And your friends will be amazed to see you laughing…'And it'll be as if I had given you, instead of stars, a lot of tiny bells that know how to laugh..."  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I now think of Helen Keller’s encouragement to those of us who can see the beauty if we knew that we were about to become blind.  “I am, however, sure that if you actually faced that fate your eyes would open to things you had never seen before, storing up memories for the long night ahead. You would use your eyes as never before. Everything you saw would become dear to you. Your eyes would touch and embrace every object that came within your range of vision. Then, at last, you would really see, and a new world of beauty would open itself before you.  I who am blind can give one hint to those who see – one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.”

See the stars.  See the dawn.  See the sunset.  Hear children’s voices.  Hear whispers of those sick.  Hear the birds.  Hear the coffee pot.  Hear the water run.  Smell the grass.  Smell the corn.  Feel the petal.  Feel the blanket.  Feel the touch.  Gifts.  Gifts handed by our creator through our angel of dawn this morning.  Tonight we will again be given the chisel to carve words for the moments gone today.  Will we have any moments and thought worth setting in stone?  Will we stop mentally a few grains of sand as it flows so quickly through our sand-timers?  Will we touch a hand.  Look into eyes?  Show someone they are noticed.  Hear the bird.  Drink warm tea.  Love the fog.  Love the stillness.  Love this beautiful gift of today.  Thank you for again letting me enter your world.  Susan

Latin for this week:
Mica, mica, parva stella - Twinkle, twinkle, little star
Miror quanam sis tam bella -I wonder how you are so beautiful
Super terra in caelo- Above the earth in the skies
Alba gemma splendido. - A splendid diamond
Mica, mica, parva stella - Twinkle, twinkle, little star
Miror quanam sis tam bella. - I wonder how you are so beautiful