Urania

Urania

Urania is the Muse of Astronomy. At parties, she is quick to shut down anyone who thinks she’s the Muse of Astrology. “You want to talk to my brother, Dingbat,” she says. Urania has no brothers.

Urania has seen her status steadily decline over her long life. People were once fascinated by the sky. That interest has waned over time. Even the Space Race seemed less driven by a desire to understand our glowing satellite and more a burning need to be first. Urania likes sharing ideas with children because they are usually animated by curiosity, rather than a competitive urge.

Urania is not into astrology, but she has strong feelings about destiny. To her, it is all about choices. She sees a day where humankind will need to abandon Earth because of the choices it has made while here. She has mixed feelings. On one hand, there has been renewed interest in space, as researchers look for new real estate for this messy race. On the other hand, Earth is a planet, a celestial body, of her concern. She doesn’t love what she’s seen here. People do not recognize that they live in a closed system: their home, this planet, this universe. Garbage never goes away. Consequence will always find you. To her, ultimately, we are all stardust, built of the same materials as everything else in the cosmos. We will be scattered back to the skies, with unlimited potential in this contained space. But only if we can learn to take care.

Like Clio, Urania is fascinated by history, but from an unlikely source. Clio loves books and rocks. Urania is captured by light. How old the stars are! What we see here, now, with our eyes lifted to the heavens, is ancient. Time is an immediate concern to things with lifespans, but in the cosmos, time stretches out. The light at we see in the very background of everything is the moment this universe was born! She likes to take pictures, to manipulate light and capture time.

Urania learned to juggle a few thousand years ago, as a way to explain orbits and celestial movement to students. Not a perfect analogy, but it did help. 

Urania has a sweet tooth, loves cake. Her favorite, a Smith Island cake, has layers, like the development of scientific knowledge, like the atmosphere that protects our planet. Again, with the metaphors, but mostly she just loves the frosting.

She has a lazy cat named Erwin.