blogwithvalor

Grandpa Leo bent over the fire and turned over a couple of logs. The flames grew quickly as the other side of those logs burned. A few sparks and pops happened, and bits of fire floated up with the smoke. Jenny and Matt followed the glowing bits fly up into the night sky. Their mouths hung wide open as they looked up towards the heavens. They stared at all the bright stars lighting up the darkness above them. The camp site was so far from any town that they could see the Milky Way. Its white stripe cutting across the sky, splitting it in two. This was Matt and Jenny’s first time camping. They both lived in the city and had never seen so many stars.

Grandpa Leo started pointing out the constellations to them. They found the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Draco, Cassiopeia, and Taurus. Matt and Jenny did their best to remember each one and continued to point out each one to the other over and over.

Matt, being a little older, finally broke their back and forth and ask Grandpa Leo a question, “How did all the stars get up there?”

Jenny nodded excitedly. She too wanted to know.

Grandpa Leo smiled at the two of them. “Well, this is a story my grandpa told me when I was about your age. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes, please!” They both replied.

Grandpa Leo began, “Long ago, the moon existed in a very dark and lonely night. There were no stars to keep her company. Once in a while she and the sun would meet each other.”

“Like during an eclipse.” Jenny chimed in.

“Yes. Exactly. But her job was to watch over the night. So most of her time was spent watching over everyone while they slept. At first, she enjoyed the peace and quiet of it. The sun always complained about how loud people were. But as time went on, the moon became very lonely. The darkness of the night sky only made it worse.”

“Because there were no stars.” Matt said aloud, reminding Jenny and himself.

“Precisely. After some time, the moon decided she wanted to create friends to watch over the night sky with her. So during the next eclipse, she spoke to the sun and asked him to collect the whitest feathers he could find.”

Jenny looked worried. “He didn’t pluck them off of birds, did he?”

“Oh no, dear. Birds constantly lose feathers, and the sun watches over all the planet. So, he had plenty of feathers to pick from when the birds are out catching bugs. The moon, in the meantime, collected the string from spiderwebs. By the next solar eclipse, the moon had collected a large bundle of spider string. When she approached the sun she was astonished. The sun had gathered millions of feathers. All of them were brighter than any she had ever seen before. The time they had spent with the sun had imprinted some of his light into them. She thanked him and began her work with all the feathers and string.”

“What was she making?” Matt asked as he and Jenny were leaning ever so close to Grandpa Leo, listening intently.

“She tied the feathers to the sky and created stars. She put so many of them across the sky, but still had so many feathers to go. So she created a long net with her string that stretch across the sky and spread all the remaining feathers into the net. It created a white stripe of stars across the sky.”

“That’s the Milky Way!” Jenny said proudly.

“Yes it is. But the moon wasn’t done. She had set aside some of the biggest and brightest feathers. With those, she strung them together into beautiful formations and they came to life as her constellations. She made dozens and dozens of constellations.”

“Like the Big Dipper!” Matt shouted. Then he looked almost embarrassed before he and Jenny started giggling.

Grandpa Leo giggled with them before topping off his story. “And that’s how the stars were created. They are all the children of the sun and moon, just like you two are your mommy and daddy’s kids.”

Matt and Jenny looked at one another, then turned their heads to the stars in the sky. In full amazement at the beauty the sky presented them.