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Pure and Prepared to Leap Up to the Stars: this week on The Storyteller's Night Sky

William Blake's image of Dante admiring the divine in the Paradise of his Divine Comedy, the three canticles of which (Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise) end with the word "stella," (or stars) as the ultimate fulfillment of every path.
William Blake's image of Dante admiring the divine in the Paradise of his Divine Comedy, the three canticles of which (Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise) end with the word "stella," (or stars) as the ultimate fulfillment of every path.
Mary Stewart Adams reflects on 13 years of hosting "The Storyteller's Night Sky."
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Pure and Prepared to Leap Up to the Stars:

This week brings the first New Moon of the New Year, on Wednesday, January 29th, which marks the Year of the Snake in the Chinese festival calendar, a complex symbol, signifying death and destruction or a resurrection of life forces because snakes periodically shed their skin. Most likely it’ll be both ~ the death of an old way of being to make way for what’s new.

And so it is with “The Storyteller’s Night Sky”: after over 13 years airing on Interlochen Public Radio, this will be the final episode here.

This January 27th also marks the date that the poet Dante was sentenced to exile. Though this was devastating for him, the 700 years of impact resulting from the life work he then undertook is still a sublime gift for humanity.

Dante was acutely aware of the star knowledge of his day, and his Divine Comedy arrived on the world stage at a time when Earth was still the center of the universe, and was central to the attention of a living cosmos populated by divine beings.

At the end of the Inferno, Dante and Virgil emerge from the writhing pit and are able to see once more see the stars. At the top of the Mountain of Purgatory, Dante and Beatrice are at last pure and prepared to leap up to the stars. Then in the Paradise, Dante witnesses the godhead as love, the love that moves the Sun and the other stars.

From witnessing the stars, to leaping up the stars, to knowing the stars as the ultimate expression of the divine, Dante demonstrates that the path to what’s highest, most good, and true is always undertaken in harmony with the stars.

Mary Stewart Adams is a Star Lore Historian and host of “The Storyteller’s Night Sky.” As a global advocate for starry skies, Mary led the team that established the 9th International Dark Sky Park in the world in 2011, which later led to her home state of Michigan protecting 35,000 acres of state land for its natural darkness.