Short Summary
Mark
Edmundon’s chapter “To Draw a Constellation” from his short novel titled Why
Write? begins with a nod to the great Roman culture, which he believes
knew all the answers to how to preserve your legacy after live. According to
this chapter, there are only three ways to ensure that your legacy exists: by
making great conquests, having children, or writing it all down. Although our
writings themselves might not gain fame during our lifetimes (or even during
the lifetimes of our children), the more we write, the more likely that our
stories will build our constellations. Essentially, each individual work that
we create is a tiny star in the cosmos—our input on the world, so to speak. The
more we write and create, the more stars we have, which, hopefully, will
eventually turn into a beautiful constellation which summarizes our lives as
creators. Our works are a progression in the cosmos, detailing who we were, who
we are, and who we want to be. Arguably, not everyone's constellations actually
lead anywhere or reflect a true image of their writing journeys; some are
crooked, others loop back on each other multiple times, but they're still the
road maps to our spiritual progress. You may have to tilt your head just right
to see the outline, or trace the individual stars like a child’s connect the
dots drawing, but they’re always visible—no matter how dim.
Although the
ending of my summary to Edmundson’s chapter ends on a bright note, his does
anything but. His critique of other authors, especially those who write in only
one genre (and sometimes even the ones who like to switch it up from time to
time), is arrogant and tasteless at best. His title of "To Draw a
Constellation" gives the promise of an inspiring read, but his
constellation morphs into more of a dollar sign than a mythological figure or
majestic beast. Instead of focusing on the beauty and intensity of writing
itself, he chooses to belittle his contemporaries and devote all of his
attention on how he Therefore, I will be rewriting my own version of
Edmundson’s chapter with special emphasis on areas that I feel like he missed
by a long shot.
(The
Hubble Telescope's latest capture of the Carina Nebula)
Humanity's Fascination with the Stars:
Humanity's fascination with the beauty of the cosmos above us is nothing new.
They are the windows into creation, proof of how much the universe has changed
and expanded over the eons. They help us chart our weather patterns, our love
lives, and even our destinies. In astrology, the stars, their relations to the
planets and how they effect our behavior, lifestyles, and our futures make up
an entire discipline of study.
(The Hubble Telescope's capture of the Eagle Nebula's Pillars of
Creation)
Some people
even believe that the constellations give us a closer glimpse into the divine.
Samuel T. Coleridge, a British Romantic poet who Edmundson loves to reference
throughout his book, believed that studying the constellations somehow held the
key to his imagination. That imagination could be found in the constellations,
where "the
modifying nature of Coleridge’s imagination and its power to blend and
assimilate disparate elements into one glorious product is described in a
curiously alchemical language" ("Dream Weaver: Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and the Prefiguring of Jungian Dream Theory"
2). Essentially, this means that Coleridge considered his imagination to
be a constantly-changing entity, something that could be shifted and molded the
more he learned about the cosmos. The philosopher Boehme, one of
Coleridge's inspirations, claimed that" the whole nature, with the powers
which are in nature, also the width, depth, and height, also heaven and earth,
and all whatsoever is therein, and all that above the heavens, is together the
body or the corporeity of God; and the powers of the stars are the fountain
veins in the natural body of God in this world" (Toor 145). Although I'm
not entirely certain that the stars are the veins of God, it is possible that
the stars are the veins of our own creations as artists, poets, and writers.
At the very least, they're the channels through which we inspire our
creative energies to flow.
My Fascination with the Stars:
The first time I
wrote about stars was in my first grade class, when my teacher assigned our
first "research" project. He told us that we had to come up a topic
that we were most interested in, and present our findings in front of the class
the following week. I don't exactly remember how I stumbled across the topic of
stars and constellations, but I vividly recall the Hubble Telescope’s pictures
I found of different stars throughout our galaxy. From this research, I
discovered that not all stars are equal in color, heat, or distance to the
earth. In fact, "the stars with ‘cooler’
temperatures have energy that is radiated in the red tones of the
electromagnetic color spectrum" (which usually run at a cool
6,000 degrees Celsius), while those with ‘hotter’ temperatures had energy that
is radiated in the blue and white tones of the electromagnetic color
spectrum" burn at up 25,000 degrees Celsius ("Why are Stars Different
Colors?").
While
this new information was exciting to me, it brought about an entirely new question
in my mind. I knew that the sun was the biggest star in our solar system, but
my research was a little confusing. The last time I checked, our sun burned a
yellow-orange color. Did that mean that despite its size, it did not burn
nearly as hot as the smaller stars surrounding it? The short answer was
yes. Why? Because "the coolest stars… reach a temperature of around 3,000
degrees Celsius” and as a star’s hue goes higher along the electromagnetic
color spectrum, it burns hotter. So, our own bright sun, which glows
yellow-orange, “has a temperature of around 6,000 degrees Celsius” (“Why are
Stars Different Colors?”). As far as the cosmos are concerned, the heart of the
star doesn’t lie in its size, but in its warmth.
(The Hubble
Telescope's capture of the "Bright Shining Lizard Star")
How Our Works Equate to Stars:
Sure, all of this
information about stars is interesting and enlightening, but what do these
celestial beings have to do with our works of art? According to Edmundson, our works
create a “dot-to-dot”mural of our identities as writers; they chart our
“mind(s) and spirit(s) over time” to create “something of an
intellectual/spiritual biography” ("To Draw a Constellation" 243-244).
His opinion is that these murals are guided by the biggest work in our
constellation. However, I'd like to take that idea a step further. While I
agree that our largest works do assist the most in the creation of our murals,
I don’t think that size is equitable to greatness. Like the sun, our most well known
projects are the stars made of red or yellow-orange hues, which are bigger than
all of the other dots around them simply because of their proximity to our
audiences or their popularity. Our other works are like the blue stars--they
burn hotter than any of our other projects, but aren't always the largest focal
points in the galaxies of our lives. Some may even be so tiny that they lie
hidden in the shadow of our “greatest” creations until after we’re gone. For
example, the book that made Jane Austen the most money and caused her to gain
popularity in her lifetime was Sense and
Sensibility, which sold for £140 (“Jane Austen, How We Can Help You Live the
Life You Want”). However, as time has changed, the most popular of her novels is
now Pride and Prejudice, a novel that
she unhappily sold for £111 (“Jane Austen Books and Other Works”). Despite the fact that Sense and Sensibility was the largest
work in her constellation, time has proved it no match in comparison for the
smaller, bluer shimmer of Pride and Prejudice.
Young readers today would much rather fawn over the idea of their own version
of the brooding Mr. Darcy than the polite Colonel Brandon.
Building Our Own Constellations:
The
process of building our own constellations is as complicated as the creation of
the universe itself. Where do we want our individual dots to end up in our
mural, and which ones should be the brightest? Do we really get to choose the
temperature at which each novel, panting, or essay reaches our audience down on
earth, or do we just have to hope that they leave some sort of lasting effect
on even the tiniest piece of humanity? I believe that for the most part, our
audiences are the ones who choose the angle at which our constellations are
seen. They are the controllers of the Hubble Telescope, seeking out the perfect
snapshot to share with the rest of the world. Some creators might be terrified
of that idea, but the beauty of creating is in not knowing which galaxy our constellations
might end up in. Some stars might collapse or disappear entirely over time, but
our constellations will remain: constantly evolving, constantly glowing and
burning.
(The
Hubble Telescope’s image of a Star Cluster inside the Carina Nebula)
Works Cited
Edmundson, Mark. "To Draw a Constellation." Why Write?: A Master Class on the Art of Writing and Why it Matters, vol. 1, Bloomsbury, 2016. pp. 241-251.
"Jane Austen, How We Can Help You Live the Life You Want." Pink Investments, www.pinkinvestments.org/index.php?module=newsviews&action=famous-janeausten. Accessed 30 April 2017.
NASA, ESA/Hubble, and the Hubble Heritage Team. "Carina Nebula." Hubble Space Telescope, April 24, 2007, http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0707a/. Accessed 30 April 2017.
NASA, ESA/Hubble, and the Hubble Heritage Team. "Star Cluster in the Carina Nebula." NASA, http://hubblesite.org/image/2995/news/56-hubble-telescope. Accessed 30 April 2017.
April 24, 2007, NASA, ESA/Hubble, and the Hubble Heritage Team. "Hubble's Bright Shining Lizard Star." NASA, April 28, 2017, https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2017/hubbles bright-shining lizard-star. Accessed 30 April 2017.
NASA, ESA/Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team. "The Eagle Nebula's Pillars of Creation." Hubble Space Telescope, Jan. 5, 2015, http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1501a/. Accessed 30 April 2017.
Toor, Kiran. Coleridge's Chrysopoetics: Alchemy, Authorship and Imagination, vol. 1, Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1443827630. Accessed 30 April 2017.
---. "Dream Weaver: Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Prefiguring of Jungian Dream Theory."
Friends of Coleridge, http://www.friendsofcoleridge.com/MembersOnly/CB24/11%20CB
%2024%20Toor.pdf. Accessed 30 April 2017.
http://www.janeausten.org/jane-austen-books.asp. Accessed 30 April 2017.
"Why are Stars Different Colors?" Planets for Kids: FREE Astronomy Network for Kids,
http://www.planetsforkids.org/why-are-stars-different-colors.html. Accessed 30 April 2017.
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