Seeing a shooting star
Most shooting stars are specks of space dust about the size of a grain of sand, burning up some fifty miles overhead. It shows how much light small things can make when they move with full force.
What it may mean
It is hard to believe, watching a bright streak cross half the sky, that it was made by something smaller than a pebble. Most shooting stars are grains of dust shed by comets and asteroids, hitting the air so fast that they flare up and burn away high above the ground. A speck makes the light; the speed does the rest. That is a thought worth taking back indoors. Some of the brightest moments of an ordinary week come from very small things done wholeheartedly: a note left on a pillow, a stranger's well-timed joke, one honest sentence in a meeting. When the next meteor crosses your sky, count the small things that have brightened your days lately, and choose one small kindness you could do for someone else. Portuguese, Belgian and Maori lore tied falling stars to souls and spirits.
Depending on how you saw it
During a meteor shower
In August and December, Earth passes through trails of dust left by a comet (the August Perseids) and by an asteroid (the December Geminids), and on a dark night you can see dozens of meteors in an hour. The shower comes on schedule; its best moments do not. Which regular part of your year still manages to surprise you?
A fireball brighter than the rest
Now and then a meteor is bright enough to light up the ground or leave a glowing trail, a fireball made by a somewhat larger piece of rock. People talk about it for days. Which bright moment from this year are you still telling people about?
Seeing one alone
A shooting star seen alone, with nobody to tell, can feel like a secret. In Portugal, people answered a meteor with a wish for their own soul: "May my soul run to heaven like thee!" What would you say to a passing light if nobody else could hear?
Why it happens in nature
Shooting stars, or meteors, are bits of rock and dust that hit Earth's atmosphere at enormous speed and heat the air until it glows, roughly 50 to 75 miles up. Most are about the size of a grain of sand. Meteor showers, such as the Perseids in August, happen when Earth crosses the debris trail left by a comet.
What folk beliefs say
Portugal
When a meteor was seen in the sky in Portugal, people made the wish: "May my soul run to heaven like thee!"
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 999. View the page
Belgium
In Belgium, if you saw a falling star and could say "To God!" three times before it vanished, you would help a soul in purgatory into heaven.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 999. View the page
New Zealand (Maori)
The Maori of New Zealand believed shooting stars were spirits, said to rest on an ancient tree as they fell.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 1002. View the page
England (Somerset)
In Somerset, a falling star was taken as a sign of a birth.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 1006. View the page
To reflect on
Which small thing lit up your week, and which small thing could you do to light up someone else's?