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View Full Version : When Was The Last Time You Saw The Stars On A Clear Night?



sushil soni
03-Nov-2009, 09:35
This is a harmless piece, but I think it is provocative...so, without prejudice, I just wanted to share my views on this forum. If you find it worthy, then I'll be happy to have your views, else you can just throw it away... Sushil Soni.


When was the last time you saw the stars on a clear night? How much are you close to nature now than you were a few years ago? You are glued to your television sets endlessly watching the soaps that dull your mind and the news channels that do not in any way trigger your imagination, apart from putting into your brains with stories of more violence, more violence and more violence. These electronic instruments are taking you away from the world you live in, from your very own self.

The trouble is that all these bites are taking you away from reality, the real you, the real world, the real universe we live in and the real thinking process. All that you are doing is soaking in facts and statistics from this information technology revolution that seems to have chained you. You are bound, unable to move away, unable to get the freedom that your heart is seeking. Your school education, your college degree, your office environment, your home, your relationships with all the people around you has no meaning at all, because you have become a mere robot, with no sensitivity. All that you do is work like a machine and die like a rusted machine. You put into your body medicines, you put into your body foods and intoxicants that do not suit you and you confidently say that your body is now well oiled to work for eternity.

We tend to forget that this body in which we have come to live is going to stay with us for ever. That's why we become insensitive, that's why we have become callous. We do not care what we do because we think that nobody can touch us, nobody can punish us, nobody can dare us. So, we can do whatever we like, whether it means abusing anyone, killing anyone, beating up anyone, or robbing anyone. Because we think that nobody can harm us, we tend to harm others.

This is not living.

We live in ignorance and bask in the glory of self-created egos that prevent us from seeing the reality of things. The reality is that we are idiots living in an idiotic world that we have created ourselves!

Look around you. How many people are happy? How many people are healthy? Go the hospitals, go to the clinics, go to the spiritual retreats, go to the banks of the rivers in India during festivals, go to the places of worship. And you will know how many happy faces there are in this world!

I believe that the ultimate purpose of living is finding about ourselves and about the world around us. I believe that the ultimate goal of life is to spread happiness and health and not to create situations where others suffer. Look at the animals in the wild. We are always glued to our television sets. Watch Discovery and National Geographic channels and see how the animals behave. How many tigers have killed other tigers to gain just money? And what would you do with that money after killing the person and stealing from him?

We are victims of your ignorance because even after having been educated, you have not been taught to look into yourself. There have been many great people in this world, who had been highly educated but who created great difficulties, who misused their powers, who killed and maimed and who were instrumental in the great wars that killed millions of people and destroyed many wonderful man-made marvels.

I'm reminded of what I wrote in one of my poems:

"We have still not found our vision, though
Centuries of struggles have wasted deaths."

Yes, have you ever thought that all these millions of people who have died in the past for this idea or that ideology - all these deaths have simply been wasted? Whatever happened to those Revolutions? Whatever happened to Afghanistan or Iraq? How much have they changed for the better? What will happen to our world if such people are going to spread their wings? We just saw the maps of Central Asia change. Are we going to see the maps of other places change? What for? And for whose satisfaction????

Has all this happened because of education or a lack of it?

What surprises me is that I have stopped seeing the housebirds - the sparrows - visit my window in the morning and wake me up. Where have they dgone? What surprises me is that the winters that I used to experience during childhood have gone forever. And we are sitting like ducks. Let's wake up to this reality!

All we have to do is: Think about it.

saliotthomas
03-Nov-2009, 11:27
Well Hello Sushil.
The last time i a watch stars was yesterday evening as i do on most clear nights and i watch sunset too because i'm lucky enough to leave in a place where the weather alowes it.
I don't watch TV but film and play games on it.
All you say is very good but one should be carefull not getting obscessed with it.
Live healthy but get dog drunk sometime,eat well but go for junk on occasion. Be bad now and then(to yourself of course)It is good for you too.Because as my father says "Non smokers dies for anus cancer" if that make any sense.

Is watching star important?(i translate it in a simple way for some of us like clear cut thread names)

beelzebubbles
03-Nov-2009, 21:12
Where I live you can no longer see the stars but you can see the man-made satellites that orbit the earth and the moon progress and regress. It was full last night. I chose my apartment because it looks out on a stand of trees behind which there is a creek which I can hear when things quiet down at night. It has a full southern exposure so besides the baking of my apartment I often get to see the sunset. I last saw a lavish display of stars in the summer of 1996 when visiting my aunt in Gettysburg, PA. She lives near the battlefield which is now a National park so there is no light pollution to obstruct the view. We lay out in the middle of her field in chaise lounges and enjoyed the view.


What surprises me is that I have stopped seeing the housebirds - the sparrows - visit my window in the morning and wake me up. Where have they dgone?

Sorry about the loss of your songbirds. Do you know the cause? In the US, they prohibited the use of certain pesticides because it endangered the wild birds. Do they use DDT where you live?

Jayaprakash
04-Nov-2009, 02:11
The US continued exporting DDT to countries like mine long after it was banned on their own lands. Google 'circle of poison' for more details.

virustangyu
04-Nov-2009, 02:38
Clear sky and bright stars are always the eternal subjects to the poets. Unluckily, we are losting the views and poets.

sushil soni
04-Nov-2009, 07:32
Yes, I think views of the poets are important. They don't think in terms of monetary or materialistic benefits. They see the joy in everything, even in sadness. But then, these are strongly personal emotions.
Yes, you are right. We are losing the poets. There is a poet in each one of us, notwithstanding. But we are losing them because in this age of materalism and greed, we are asking for more, more, more...never even for once pausing to reflect.

Jayaprakash
04-Nov-2009, 07:54
'Bard' was a job description at one point, you know.

Also, your free use of the collective pronoun is somewhat irksome.

sushil soni
04-Nov-2009, 08:35
Yes. I agree. Well, but let's call them poets. They were not just romanticising events or even myths. They were actually recording them for the next generation. ANd like most of us, they had strong emotions, they were intensely involved.
Consider a short piece for intensity that I wrote:

There was this stillness in the air.
And you beside me.
Gently, I touched the warmth of your love
In the soft glow of the candle
That we had lit
When the lights went out
On that dark summer night.

I have now framed our shadows in my mind
That I had then glanced on the wall
While we had kissed.

Now I still remember
Night after night,
And you beside me,
Holding together, in the stillness of the night
The sweet moments of our love.

Regarding the use of common pronoun, if that requires a correction, that I'll do.

Ramblingsid
04-Nov-2009, 16:29
I once went on a walking holiday in southern Morroco. On the first day we drove south out of Marrakesh the whole day to the area we were walking in and stayed in a little mud brick town. We all slept on the roof of the house we were staying at and laying back could gaze up at the most brilliant bright starlit sky. Pure magic!

saliotthomas
04-Nov-2009, 16:43
I once went on a walking holiday in southern Morroco. On the first day we drove south out of Marrakesh the whole day to the area we were walking in and stayed in a little mud brick town. We all slept on the roof of the house we were staying at and laying back could gaze up at the most brilliant bright starlit sky. Pure magic!

Well tha's my routine,flat roof terrasse.


Only you have to crowl back in at 5 in the morning because of the light and then the flies.

Ramblingsid
04-Nov-2009, 17:05
Doesn't it get cold? I remember I took a very good sleeping bag with me and while everybody else complained about the cold I was boiling hot in it until the temperature fell and then I was as warm as toast. Woke up every day with ice formed on it

saliotthomas
04-Nov-2009, 17:35
It does in winter but in summer a light sheet suffice.(you must have been in the mountains)
I don't do it every night,most often i bring a drink and the guitar,but sometime we do have a romantic night with my wife 'a la belle etoile' as we say in French .As we a 15 km from the city the sky is clear,beautifull.Specialy in winter for their is no myst from the heat.

Ramblingsid
04-Nov-2009, 17:49
It was the Jebel Sahro or some such name - a bit vague on the spelling.

south of ouazazarte (even vaguer on the spelling of that) great fun sleeping under the stars every night

saliotthomas
04-Nov-2009, 18:07
It was the Jebel Sahro or some such name - a bit vague on the spelling.

south of ouazazarte (even vaguer on the spelling of that) great fun sleeping under the stars every night

I know both places so your spelling was not to far....beautyfull.
Many movies are shot in Ourzazate.(Gladiator,and load of the Irak conflict one..)Great cinema studios.