The Delta Aquariids meteror showers finally inspired me and my fiance to try out a new telescope that’s been gathering dust in our living room since this past June.

These days, I mark very few thing on my calendar, but I did mark the meteor showers in fat red letters.

After twenty minutes of squinting into the contraption, we figured out that looking into the telescope paled when compared to relying on the human eye. As a result, we ended up in lawn chairs, heads bent ninety decrees, drawing imaginary lines as we star hopped across the sky.

Beyond the North Star, Big and Little Dipper, we vowed to study up on our future night maps to gain a broader insight into the language of the stars and, thereby, honor the majesty of our night sky.

In about a two-hour period, we spotted under a dozen shooting stars. Shooting stars, in actuality, are not shooting stars.

“Shooting stars, or meteors, are caused by tiny specks of dust from space. These particles burn up 65 to 135 km above Earth’s surface as they plunge at terrific speeds into the upper atmosphere, making the air glow as they pass.”

Reading the definition, I equate the phenomenon to the sky’s personal housekeeping practices and its changeless inclination to change. The process is akin to, for instance, letting go of an old piece of artwork, making room for a new one. It re-energizes and rids the room of stagnation, creates a clean slate and invites birth and new memories.

I was reminded of the paradox that if change signifies life then fighting change is … stagnation? Death? Imagine if we walked around in our baby booties for our entire lives? Ouch, that’s a pair of cramped feet. I suppose that’s how some people choose to live. I, actually, knew a middle-aged woman who still wore the same clothes she wore forty years prior. Single and alone, afraid of intimacy at any degree, she lived her life under a protective shell that warded out all degrees of hurt. Protective shells might keep you risk-free from the outside world, but inside their confines they limit the oxygen supply. Instead of having room to soak in the sunny and starry-lighted world to a point where it takes your breath away, over-protection can lead to living life on a sick bed. You have the proper apparatus to keep the heart pumping, but the equipment binds you to the bed.

Like it or not, change is a necessary part of life and maybe the more flexible we consciously become, the more we can accept the life cycle –birth to death – in everything, even a star. They say one day, albeit billions of years away, the sun and earth will one day die.

Unexpectedly, while we were finding our way around the finale of July’s night sky, I came to a state of awareness that helps me navigate our small orbit on earth. Day after day, summer to fall, the Big Dipper repositions and reminds me that I have no control over the natural flow of life. I can wish on an infinite array of lucky stars, but the truth is that all the faith in the world does not anchor life and halt its course to alter it to my desires; faith provides me the anchor to ride the wave of stardust.