Decisively wishing upon a star

We are in the depths of Winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. Below freezing at night and creeping up to semi-warm during the day. I wake up with great plans for the day of doing stuff outside, and then I open the door and change my mind. The sun is shining but glowing red noses and steaming breaths signal that all is not well in Paradise. I have had my annual flu jab and have booked the appointments for the Covid 19 ones, the house is warm and the cats are cuddly, but as Puddleglum says: 'Life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie'. Another of his foodie quotes is: 'What's food for wiggles may be poison for humans, I shouldn't wonder.' I suppose what I get out of his words is that we need to make the best of what we have and watch out for things that look good but may not be great. Case in point is the sunshine outside looks toasty, but the air is so frosty it frizzles the hairs up my nose. My son leaves for work before dawn each morning on his trusty electric scooter. He has extra thick gloves and two layers of clothing for the journey, but sometimes it is not enough. He has invested in a covering for his face that only leaves his eyes exposed. And do you know what? We don't even live in the coldest part of the country. Those people in the South Island have icicles hanging from their eyebrows after their commute. There you go, I have found the positive aspect of living where we do. It's slightly warmer than the South. Yay. Puddleglum would be so proud of me. Do you know the story? It's part of the Narnia series written by C.S. Lewis and is called 'The Silver Chair'. Where the wicked queen (there always seems to be one of those somewhere in children's stories) tries to convince them that her kingdom is better than the one they are searching for. She tells them that the lamp is tangible and so why should they search for this mythical sunshine they talk about. She almost convinces the children until Puddleglum steps in and puts in his two cents worth of sensibility.

This week we have been celebrating the Maori new year, Matariki. And it got me thinking about how cultures and people decide when the first day of a new year should be. The Jewish and Celtic nations chose 1st November in ancient times. Harvesting was finished, lands were laying fallow before being prepared for the Spring planting and for a moment in time, farmers could take a breath and allow themselves a smidgeon of peace. A few centuries later and the New Year was standardised throughout the world to 1st January. Again, the farmers were in between urgent jobs. The bottling and preserves were done, the herds were not yet dropping their young and communities could relax. These days the world never seems to slow down. Corporates want money coming in no matter the time of year. No communal time of rest. The industrial revolution was all about training people to work for money and not for pleasure. Complete a task, get paid. Don't work fast enough and you are fired. Money, money and more money became the God of the new world. At some stage the workers demanded a holiday to recover and were grudgingly given a few days off.

Can you imagine what our productivity would be like if we never got any time to sleep. The first day we can cope fairly well with maybe a few complaints about feeling tired or impaired concentration. The second day we have slower reaction times, but we can still function. Day three is when it really kicks in and you could start to hallucinate. But certainly you will be feeling very anxious and jittery. Day 4 and your perception of reality changes. You believe all sorts of odd things are real and true. I look at the world and see people who believe weird and wonderful theories that make no sense to the rest of us. They see conspiracies all around them. Are we struggling with a lack of downtime? Time for our bodies to recover? We have seen an explosion in the Flat Earth society of late. Perhaps it is time to spread good conspiracies? The conspiracy that chocolate for breakfast will lengthen your life. (which it does by dilating your blood vessels and stops you having heart attacks, but only dark chocolate not the sugary concoctions.) Instead of blaming a scapegoat for the world's problems, let's offer a solution. Encourage dreamers and visionaries. A conspiracy that says wearing a tutu to the supermarket will stop mental decay as long as we dance for a moment in the aisles. It needs a catchy phrase to make it stick in our minds. 'Twirling tutu's heal the brain?' And for those who dislike tutus? 'Give a rose away to brighten your day.' or something similar. Okay those are not actually conspiracy theories. But a conspiracy only requires two or three people to agree on a concept and I am putting my hat in the ring with Puddleglum and saying “And you must always remember there's one good thing about being trapped down here: it'll save funeral expenses.” Oh dear, not quite what I had in mind. I know there is a quote there somewhere that will make sense. 'Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.' Oh no, that is worse. 'Be decisive. Right or wrong, make a decision. The road of life is full of flat squirrels who couldn't make a decision.' My decision is to get lots of rest and not listen to silly theories.

One of the stars in Matariki (the Pleiades group of stars) is called Ariki and represents the granting of wishes. But Ariki is difficult to see and perhaps that means we have to work hard to have our wishes come true.I personally will be looking for more positive conspiracies to follow. Matariki (Pleiades) was formed, so the Maori myths say, by Tawhirimatea getting upset when his parents split due to the meddling of his siblings. He ripped his eyes out of his head and threw them into the sky where they watch us to this day. In Southern Africa the Pleiades are called IsiLimela or the digging stars warning that the time of digging the earth was about to begin. The people of Namaqualand say they represent the daughters of the sky god. Their husband, Aldeberan went out hunting and missed his target. Too embarrassed to retrieve his arrow, he still lives in the sky, shivering with cold and too scared to return because of the lion (Betegeuse) who guards the way. The Milky way is the result of an angry child when her mother refused to give her some tasty morsel. The female child took the cooked food and some ashes and threw them into the sky, forming the stars. We all know the Greeks believed that the stars were divine beings resting after some feat of bravery. Pleiades are considered to be the seven daughters of the God Titan Atlas by.Titan transformed the seven sisters into stars to preserve their virtue from a rampaging Orion. Aah and the Australian Aboriginal stories reflect a similar belief. Women trying to escape an unsuitable male. Each culture in the world seems to look to the stars for guidance in some way.

But not me. All I do is make a wish and then forget it.

My mother and grandmother taught us a rhyme about stars.

'Scintillate, scintillate globular vivific,

Fain doth I fathom thy nature's specific

Highly poised in the ether capacious

Strongly resembling a gem carbonaceous.'

or in modern English

'Twinkle twinkle little star,

How I wonder what you are

Up above the world so high

Like a diamond in the sky.'

Twinkle little stars and may your week be wonderful and filled with chocolates, tutus and roses.