A mental exercise to try at night when your brain won’t slow down. Use a focal point you can rely on for the next billion years. Find a place to view the stars. Even one star visible between buildings will do.
Glare at the hypnotic dots and try to imagine…what would you think stars were if you didn’t already know?
Say you didn’t have centuries of dusty natural science books providing the answer. What might you guess about the reason for those pinpricks of light?
What did cowboys think the stars were as they lay on their blankets out under the constellations? The Milky Way a dust storm billowing across the prairie?
What did merchants camped along the Spice Road decide about these enigmatic lights? What did cavepeople theorize when they looked up from the campfire?
Launch Guesses at the Stars
Stare at the points of light and the deep darkness between. Given no hints and forced to muse at their purpose, what would you come up with? Perhaps those icy dots are spread across a dark continent passing directly overhead of our own.
They are campfires spread across a vast upside-down landscape.
Peradventure these ever-bright bulbs are cities on that landmass emerging each night, a little grid of streets and buildings hidden during the day.
Perhaps they are lanterns hung in a vast, coal-black cavern. Each lamp mounted by explorers before us. Intended to light our way when we are ready to venture into the depths.
The sparks from a mammoth circuit-board. Indicators lit.
The board that keeps all the components of the universe connected in a compact space to one power source. When one goes out, thankfully, others ignite and the circuit remains unbroken.
Maybe these lights were not strung for us, and yet, we appear to be the only ones viewing them.
A Mediation Among The Stars
This exercise not only slows your runaway thoughts for a bit but also serves to build something larger in your mind. When your brain space gets small, anxiety echoes and builds. When the head expands, worries become diffuse like a wispy nebula.
It’s also a good time to be reminded of the mysteries and wonders all around us. Are your days becoming unbearably routine and predictable? Use that string of suns as a mnemonic to plug your brain into something grand, casting its shadow across our tiny journeys night and day.
Check out a few alternate thoughts on black holes here.
Overheard on a Mountaintop 
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