Observations placeholder

from Somnium

my mother clung to me and did not leave my side, no matter where I went.... sometimes she asked about the countries which I visited and sometimes about the heavens.  She was deliriously happy that I had become acquainted with that science.  Comparing what she had learned with my remarks, she exclaimed that now she was ready to die, since she was leaving behind a son who would inherit her knowledge, the only thing she possessed.  Since I am by nature most eager to acquire new knowledge, I, in turn, questioned her about her arts.... then one day choosing the time for her narrative, she went over the whole story.........

to be sure we are burdened with cold and darkness and other discomforts... but at our service are very wise spirits who detest the bright light of the other lands and their noisy people, they long for our shadows and they talk to us intimately.  Among them there are nine chief spirits, of these one is especially well known to me, the very gentlest and innocuous of all he is evoked by one and twenty characters.  By his help I am not infrequently whisked in an instant to other shores... or if I am frightened away from some of them on account of the distance, by inqiring about them I gain as much as if I were there in person.  Most of the things which you saw with your own eyes, or learned by hearsay or absorbed from books, he related to me just as you did.  I should like you to become my companion on a visit, particularly to that region of which he has spoken to me so often.  Quite remarkable are the things which he tells about it.  The name she uttered was Levania.

I sat down ready to hear the entire plan for the trip... it was already spring.  The moon becoming a crescent began to shine as soon as the sun set below the horizon and was in conjunction with the planet Saturn in the sign of the Bull.  My mother went away from me to the nearest cross roads, raising a shout, she pronounced just a few words in which she couched her request, having completed the ceremonies she returned.