paint it purple

Last night Laurie and I went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for an evening celebrating the summer solstice.  We loved it.  There was a quick lecture on the history of constellations.  Jan Schall, curator of modern art, presented Kiki Smith’s “Constellation,” a floor-sized glass figurine temporary artwork representing the artist’s view of the heavens… or more precisely “human and animal” and their relationship between heaven and earth.  Then we went outside and waited for darkness and used telescopes to view planets — now that was great — Saturn was the best in my opinion — rings, moons.  But then…

Check this out:  here’s what the program said, and I quote in part:

In 150 CE, Ptolemy of Alexandria wrote Almagest, which would define the stellar universe for the next 1,400 years.  He listed 1,028 stars and codified 48 constellations… Johann Elert Bode’s Urangraphia (1801) identified 17,240 stars and 99 constellations.  It was the last richly embellished atlas of the sky.  Today, thanks to the Hubble telescope and computer technology, astronomers have plotted 15 million stars on a coordinate system.  (end quote) 

You catch that?  Anything there missing in that last line for you?  There is for me.  Let’s see, how many constellations did Hubble find?  I think the last count was zero.  None. 

Why?  I am trying to remember Albert Einstein’s words… “We know more and more, and understand less and less” something like that.  At least Kiki saves us.  She crashes heaven into earth.  She arranged her constellation animals complete with scat.  No machines, no humans (sic).  I’ll be direct:  I think it is so very sad that we westerners have lost our constellations.  We don’t know our stories, we don’t have a story except affluence and consumerism and comfort and busyness.  Our story  only says “Walmart or Target?”  What is our narrative?  Yes, our modern minds cynically exclaim: “But that is myth!  We hate myth, we like facts.”  Are you better off?  Perhaps there really is a story of us all.  Perhaps there is one story — not six billion stories (and not 15 million either).  But one story.  Science is so dead.  I join Nietzsche now - with a twist:  “science is dead.”  Not because I am a material-atheist, but because we just don’t need science anymore.  We are going home, back to our soul’s lover, our Creator, the Giver, the Artist.  But like all art, we cannot find the story by counting stars but by finding the story.  Like all art, we must slow down, we must find our gaze, our contemplation, our rumenatio.  I am not embracing myth - a lie.  The only good story is a true story - other myth-stories are art (that’s okay, but known myth hardly ever causes anyone to die for others, yes?)  Kiki, I don’t know where you’re at with all this.  But I hope you keep on.  Help us all.  Crash heaven into earth for me.  Transcend my mind.  Show me a god that is beyond my imagination and knowledge, for this god of my imagination will never transcend my own design.  It is only as big as me.  That is not god in my opinion.  Find the story and tell it slant so it jumps me, wrestles me, and leaves my hip out of joint for my life - marked, wrestled, seared by the very real divine… who while he walks roads of palestine, tiny dust eddies swirl and sing hallelujah… while dust cloud nebulas crush and explode - and SING hallelujah. 

Here’s how the program should have read:  “Tragically, though the modern Hubble telescope has found 15 million stars, it has discovered no new constellations.” 

By the way, if you think all I’ve said is ridiculous just write: “Uranus is visible.” (I couldn’t resist)