THE GATHERED UNIVERSE

There’s an Oscar Wilde quote that probably everyone reading this has (or will) come across in their lives at one point – sometimes stencil-painted onto a sidewalk, sometimes part of a mural, sometimes in a fragment of overheard song, sometimes when you’re trying to find a quote regarding stars and google presents you with 300 options but this one will always cap the list, sometimes something inked on the arm of the youthful barrista making your latte just so (and you might feel even a bit invasive having noticed and read the text, even if it’s out in plain view, because it’s visible but also worn by someone else), sometimes referenced in a movie, a novel, a poem, or even in its original form and context, a play. It’s a quote about stars, and longing, and depending on whose read wins, it’s a line about the yearning for connection beyond oneself.

Have you guessed it?

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars."

At Waxing Poetic, we are well aware of our pet uses of the word “universe,” often referring to an interconnected system of love, awareness, friendship, adventure, seekers, and dreamers on varying and often overlapping courses, charts, journeys, and tracks – and we’re also aware that this definition, like the universe itself, is not fixed. Our universe expands, our friend universe shifts with regularity, our family universe a little less so, but our heart universe, the core of our being as a brand and company built with and from love…is always expanding, always changing, always welcoming other gathered pieces to come together and grow.

Autumn is upon us soon. If you drive out into the Arizona desert (or Mojave, or Joshua Tree, or somewhere in Nevada, or hop on the 10 freeway and head east for awhile) and look up, or drive up a mountain, or head into California’s beautiful interior – anywhere you can go where you can ensure a little less artificial light pollution --even without a telescope, you will see something new and unfamiliar and it will become a friend in the sky. And if you don’t stargaze this way, we advise you to look at each other with a little more inquiry, a little more openness, a little more willingness to see the starry bits in side one another and… your winter, your soul, your friendship circle, and your heart universe will be bigger and more gathered and more grateful for it.

We are not all in the gutter, but this does not mean that we are not able to look up, or out, or into the eyes and hearts of the people we love or are going to love or know more – and see some stars.

Gaze onward, upward, and everward, darlings. Stars are everywhere, and we are all part of a gathering, gathered universe.