The Evening Star

The sound of your own footsteps on the snow on bitterly cold winter days in Montreal is a special music. It’s like a singing sound.

Earth's moon and the Evening Star

I often remember walking on a winter's evening down West Sherbrooke Street when I was a young and devastated student, that crunch, crunch, crunch, sound coming from beneath my boots on the frozen snow, and that Evening Star in the western sky, bright and clear.

Earth and Venus

The star hung out there and even though I had no conscious knowledge of its many meanings, I felt the solace and joy of it. If you can look at yourself from the point of view of the Evening Star, you realize that, far from being cold and alone, you are related to countless billions of people who have done the exact same thing, and who will do the same thing in the future.

Yes, I know it’s not a star, that it’s actually the planet Venus but we are talking here about something infinitely greater than astronomy, great as that may be. The stars have had immense meaning in the lives of people well before history.

The Evening Star in particular has received a lot of attention, being one of the brightest objects in our skies, and I find myself often thinking of how much it has meant to me and so many other people.

The literature, art, music, mythology, and unrecorded thought…too much…but right now come to mind Thoreau’s remark, “The stars are the apices of what triangles!” and the lines, “The stars in the sky looked down where he lay” and “Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by” in some old Christmas carols and Wagner’s “O du, mein holder Abendstern,” usually translated as “Hymn to the Evening Star” and “Romance à l'étoile du soir” and “O tu bell'astro incantator.”

Nicolas, - inspirer, music maker, bringer of happiness - showed me the Evening Star when he was only four years old and pointed out to me that it is a “wishing star.”

I think it even had a part in my decision to buy my last and best big truck, a Western Star. I often see that truck in my dreams as a symbol of the vehicle by which I can deliver whatever it is that is given to me to deliver.

There are many renditions of Wagner's song but here is one, composed by Liszt, that appeals to me right now, preceded by a translation of the lyrics into English.

Like a premonition of death, darkness covers the land,
and envelops the valley in its sombre shroud;
the soul that longs for the highest grounds,
is fearful of the darkness before it takes flight.
There you are, oh loveliest star,
your soft light you send into the distance;
your beam pierces the gloomy shroud
and you show the way out of the valley.

Oh, my gracious evening star,
I always greet you like happily:
with my heart that she never betrayed
take to her as she drifts past you,
when she soars from this earthly vale,
to transform into blessed angel!