Milky Way

Walking home last night with Christine Reick-Sonntag, I looked up at the Costa Rica mountain sky. “The Milky Way,” I cried, and she started, saying, “Oh, it’s the same in German, Milch Strasse.” The word in Ancient Greek also comes from milk, “Galactica.”

The stars are a river—you cannot step into the same sky twice. The stars brush past us—the light is part of them, and is passing each instant over our skin. The fragile light has traveled millions of years to reach us.

Stars travel in all directions at once. The stream of the Milky Way is made of stones flowing in waves like water everywhere.