Storyteller's Night Sky 2025-12-10 (The Geminid Meteor Shower, or Phaethon and the Chariot of Fire)

One of the most prolific meteor showers of the year happens on Saturday this week, on the date referred to centuries ago by the English John Donne as the deep midnight of both the year and the day. The meteor shower is known as the Geminids, and it peaks every year overnight on December 13th to 14th. This meteor shower is great because it gets active before midnight, once the constellation Gemini rises in the East not long after sunset, and the early meteors often leave long, beautiful trails as they graze the top of the atmosphere. As Gemini rises higher, the meteors get more active, but now they lose their arc and seem to come straight on toward us, shorter and quicker, but more abundant. December 13 is also the feast of St. Lucy, to whom John Donne wrote his 17th century nocturnal. St. Lucy was martyred in the 4th century, and is regarded as the patron saint of eyesight. She is also the patroness of Dante. In fact, Lucy is one of the three feminine divine that stand as guardian over Dante’s epic journey through the inferno, the purgatory, and the paradise. And in that sublime way of penetrating life’s mysteries that is reserved for poets and initiates, Dante describes how, when he mounts up to the starry worlds after moving through the planetary spheres of the paradise, he does so at the region of Gemini stars. Look for the Geminid Meteor Shower overnight Saturday, December 13 to 14. The constellation rises about 8:30 pm local time, which is a few hours after sunset in the northern hemisphere. This shower is the call to make ready, the year’s midnight is upon us, what path will we take, what future will we make?