The Ancients drew lines to connect the stars and make patterns

Tonight, go outside.  Look up.  What do you see?  Millions and millions of stars nestled in the deep black sky.  Long ago, people noticed the way some of them seemed to move in particular ways and could help them find a sense of location, a sense of direction, and a sense of time and season.  To remember them, they traced patterns among the stars and so, a group of stars connected by the lines they drew became a winged horse, or a lion, or a princess, each given a story. And that is how this knowledge passed down from generation to generation— gifts to help us know where we are when we feel lost.  

Then one day, a man named H.A. Ray looked at the patterns drawn between the stars and  thought, “but the way its drawn doesn’t look like a bear or a lion or twins at all.”  And he dared to redraw those lines.  He didn’t change the stars. He just reconnected them in a way that made the resulting image look like the thing it was meant to look like.  What a genius!!  

The lines we draw to connect situations in our own lives can be redrawn if the meanings derived from them are no longer true or helpful.

We notice certain events or situations, link facets of them together into patterns that yield meanings we use to tell us something about who we are, where we are and which direction we are going.  Many of these patterns come from the cultural stories passed down to us. We also create our own sets of connections.  Some are undoubtably tried, true and helpful, but quite frankly, sometimes the lines we have draw between situations, people, or things end up tripping us or getting us stuck: 

This post is an invitation to notice how you are making meaning out of the situations and events you are walking through and realize that YOU drew those lines and YOU can redraw them and make new meanings. The facts and things we can’t control will remain constant, but the lines we draw and the meanings we derive from patterns of our lives can be changed if we dare to try.  “Only connect,” said Meg in Howard’s End, YES. But HOW you connect one thing to another and what meaning you derive from that makes ALL the difference.