Catch a Falling Star
One of my favorite parts of sleeping outside during the summer is watching meteor showers in the night sky.
When a meteoroid enters Earth’s atmosphere, the trail of light it emits as the tiny bits of dust and rock burn up is a called a meteor. We call the meteor’s visible path a “shooting star” or a “falling star.” At certain times of the year, you may see a lot of shooting stars during meteor showers, which happen when the Earth passes through the debris left by a comet as it orbits around the Sun. There are two annual meteor showers that happen in July and August: the Delta Aquarids and the Perseids.
At its peak in mid-August (this year on the 11th through the 14th), the Perseid meteor shower shows off about 60-100 meteors per hour! It comes from the debris trail left by the comet Swift-Tuttle, and it’s been around a long long time—at least 2,000 years! So August is peak time for seeing a lot of shooting stars . . . and perfect weather for sleeping outside, thus strengthening your connection to nature.
Often, you’ll see the most meteors either on a dark moonless night, picking up steam after midnight, or in the wee hours just before dawn. They fly all over the sky in many different directions. So get out a blanket or recliner chair and look up at the dark sky, as far away from artificial lights as possible.
The Perseid shower is named for the constellation Perseus, the son of Zeus, an ancient Greek god, and Danae, a mortal. As the myth goes, Perseus visited Danae in a shower of gold. There is a fascinating modern study that indicates a major cataclysmic meteor shower took place about 3.9 billion years ago, when Earth was in its infancy, which delivered gold and various precious metals to Earth.
What can watching the night sky do for you? First, it expands your mind as you gaze out into the universe. You can feel not only that you are a small speck in the vastness of space, but you can also recognize that your consciousness is made of the same substance as that of the stars—that we are indeed one with it all, as we learn in energy medicine!
Here is a meditative exercise to do while being outdoors at night. Almost all tribes around the globe use some version of this meditation, from the Mayans to the Hopi, to the Maori and the Aboriginals.
Sit quietly, on the earth if possible. Breathe in . . . and breathe out . . . slow, deep breaths.
Feel your body relaxing completely. Let your thoughts go and just follow your breath.
Visualize the area in which you are lying. Are there grass, trees, and rocks around you? Wide open plains? A body of water nearby? See the land around you as beautiful. Feel your love for nature, for beloved Mother Earth. Let this love grow and grow until you feel this love in your body.
Now take your love for Mother Earth and gather it into a ball, the size of a tennis ball, and use your focused intention to send this ball down into the center of the Earth so that Mother Earth feels your love for her.
Wait for a short while, until you feel Mother Earth send her love back to you, her child. Let her love move throughout every cell of your body and into your subtle bodies, your own personal energy field. Let yourself rest in the Divine Mother’s arms.
Without losing your connection to Mother, turn your focus to the Divine Father. Look up into the night sky and see the vast multitude of stars that form our Milky Way. You are gazing at the beauty of all Creation. Feel your love for the Divine Father, gather this love into a small ball, and send it with focused attention into the Heavens. You can send it to our sun, the way most indigenous people do, to the Great Central Sun, and to the sacred grids around the Earth.
Wait for the Father to send his love back to you, his child. Let this love enter your cells and your personal energy field.
You, the Divine Child, are now being held in the arms of both the Divine Mother and the Divine Father. It is from within this Holy Trinity that you can experience the Creator and Creation. You are one with Source.
Finally, align your chakras and make a powerful wish on the next shooting star you see!