"Hi Mandie," Atlacatl called out. He was standing in the middle of the Oakes bridge just outside my front door. I was startled because it was nearly four in the morning, and didn't expect anyone else to be up.

"I was on my way back to my apartment," he explained softly, "But I saw this thing in the sky," he raised his arm reverently and pointed at a bright dot on the eastern horizon, "It's flashing blue and red and green and I've never seen anything like it. I've been watching it for like ten minutes thinking I must be crazy."

I love that he was compelled to call out to me, to bring this shimmering night sky phenomenon to my attention, his voice hopeful that I too would verify that he was witnessing something unexpected and beautiful. Atlacatl is one of student staff members I supervise. He is kind and deliberate, and tends not to say more than he needs to. He didn't ask me why I was up so late, but just stood there waiting for me to join in his wonder. I followed his finger and squinted into the dark. At first it looked just like a bright star, but then, I saw it. A flash of red, a burst of blue, fading to white, then blue again. And in an instant I was on the same plane of awe. Pinwheel-like, the colors cycled through over and over, sometimes seeming to flame brighter or wider, and it would steal away my breath. We speculated (plane? planet? star?), doubted that it was stationary, then we convinced one another it was. I'd never seen this thing either, and I was rather smitten by it all. I looked up higher in the sky and identified Orion splayed on on his left side, his belt almost pointing an arrow down upon this star. I told him I'd get online and find out what it was, and email him.

It's Sirius, the "dog star," known now by Harry Potter fans as Harry's fugitive Godfather, who could shape shift into a big, black dog. The Ancient Greeks thought that Sirius' emanations could affect dogs adversely, making them behave abnormally in the heat of summer. How apt that is, I thought as I read, for I'd been preoccupied all day thinking through a trespass by a man who had behaved abnormally and left a wake of trauma behind. And what hot days we've been having. But blaming a star for the choices of men who behave like dogs is as futile as convincing said men of the error of their ways. I went back outside, and watched Sirius do some more fanciful color play. I decided stolen early morning moments with a night sky companion like Sirius could redeem me from my anger. There's always beauty, there's always wonder, there's always someone ready to reveal a love of the inky heavens above to the next person who walks by. There are always more reasons to be loving than to not.

That still doesn't mean I have to like him, though.

I'd used the excuse of walking a dear friend halfway out to her car to finally take out some boxes from my month-ago move to the recycle bin, and it was on the way back that Sirius grabbed my attention. I wouldn't have had this starry encounter at all if I had been more on top of my recycling. But something led me to keep forgetting. God, my clandestine miracle worker, She also goes by this name, "Something," as Rev D said today, and will bring us only what we need for our own spiritual development, and often when we least expect it.

My friend and I had just spent hours and hours together on my lovely soft couches, drinking wine, eating ice cream, and doing what sometimes feels like a most important Thing To Do, connecting with another soul. She and I were compatriots in this trespass I referred to, and it was important that we loved each other through to the essence of what this situation means: for me, another opportunity to heal from the experience of oppression as a woman; for her, it revealed remarkable strength and integrity as core qualities, and probably more. I am blessed to have such a woman in my life, and though she is ten years younger than I, I see in her my greatest hope for women taking root: that we find our voice with grace and ease and certainty, that we act less from the desire to be loved or adored, and more from the certainty that love is already ours.