When our medieval forebears looked into the sky, they didn’t look into the vastness of space. They looked towards the lights of divine heavens. The enchanted, celestial vista, and its felt presence, is described by Owen Barfield in his book, Saving the Appearances.
“If it is daytime, we see the air filled with light proceeding from a living sun, rather as our own flesh is filled with blood proceeding from a living heart. If it is night-time, we do not merely see a plain, homogeneous vault pricked with separate points of light, but a regional, qualitative sky, from which first of all the different sections of the great zodiacal belt, and secondly the planets and the moon (each of which is embedded in its own revolving crystal sphere) are raying down their complex influences upon the earth, its metals, its plants, its animals and its men and women, including ourselves …”
New essay at my Substack, A Golden String. Continue here…