The stars. The real ones. The kind humanity has been watching since time immemorial, usually when there’s nothing better to do.
That night, my brothers had gone to bed early. Like Marcel Proust, admittedly, but without the asthma or the literature: just a mother at the very end of her pregnancy, reason enough to advance bedtime without debate.
In this corner, somewhat distant from progress, no maternity ward was within a reasonable distance. So babies were born at home, assisted by a midwife and with a reasonable trust in tried-and-true customs.
My brothers, carefully buried under a plumage of feathered quilts of respectable volume, asked the Sandman to tell them a story. A short one, if possible, but effective.
Alas, that evening the Sandman’s imagination had run dry. So he lifted his eyes to the sky, generously sprinkled with stars, and contented himself with describing what he saw. After all, it was already a spectacle.
Long ago, when gods still walked among men, there lived Orion, the greatest of hunters.
Strong, confident, he roamed the Earth declaring that no beast could resist him.
But the gods do not like pride.
To remind him of human limits, they sent a Scorpion. Orion died, but Zeus, moved by his bravery, placed him in the sky, where he still hunts, eternally.
Not far from him shines the Bull, none other than Zeus himself, transformed to woo the gentle Europa.
His flaming eye, Aldebaran, watches over the Pleiades, the seven sisters who try to escape the hunter Orion.
Higher in the sky rolls the Charioteer’s chariot, vigilant guardian.
It protects the heavenly goat Capella and her young, lighting the night for travelers.
To the east rise two twin stars: Castor and Pollux.
One was mortal, the other immortal. Their love was so strong that Zeus bound them forever in the sky, so that neither could live without the other.
Above them walks Perseus, the hero.
He carries Medusa’s head, whose terrible eye still glimmers in the star Algol.
After vanquishing the sea monster, Perseus freed Andromeda, the chained princess, destined to join him in the heavens.
And so, every winter night, these heroes, gods, and creatures take their places once more.
All it takes is to lift your eyes to hear their story… or to consult a blog!
https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/autourduciel/2019/02/01/a-la-decouverte-du-ciel-dhiver-avec-orion/1000/
Meanwhile, I prepared to make my entrance, considering that the moment, overall, seemed quite fitting.
Falcon 9 rocket Sophie Adenot The ISS
Today, Friday, February 13, 2026, four astronauts are heading to the International Space Station as part of the Epsilon mission.
It was 5:15 a.m. in Florida when the SpaceX Dragon capsule lifted off from Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. The launch had been delayed due to unfavorable weather conditions — a reminder that, despite our technological achievements, nature still has the final say.
On board is French astronaut Sophie Adenot, accompanied by her three crewmates. From space, she shared these simple yet powerful words: “Let’s dare to dream big together.”
Those words resonate deeply with me.
I was born into a world where nothing orbited the Earth. No satellites, no live images from space, no GPS in our pockets. The sky felt vast, mysterious, and impossibly distant. Then came Sputnik. Then Laika, the small dog sent into orbit. In just a few decades, humanity made giant leaps my parents could never have imagined.
Seeing a second French woman travel to the ISS fills me with emotion. This is not only a scientific achievement; it is a symbol — a sign that, despite its fractures, our world continues to open new doors.
And yet we must also acknowledge the other side of our reality. At a time when the sound of marching boots echoes once again and nations are rearming, up there — 250 miles above our divisions — men and women from different countries live and work together. The International Space Station is the result of cooperation among NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Russia. A laboratory suspended in the vastness of space, yet firmly grounded in a simple idea: moving forward together.
As a woman of my generation, I have witnessed changes so profound and rapid that we could never have imagined them. I knew the rotary phone, and now I watch live conversations streamed from Earth’s orbit. I saw the hesitant first steps of space exploration, and today I see a continuous human presence in space.
So yes, let us dare to dream together. To dream of a humanity capable of devoting as much energy to peace as it does to technology. To dream of a world where scientific progress serves not to threaten one another, but to understand one another.
Because if we have been able to reach the stars, we should be able to learn how to live as brothers and sisters here on Earth.
To understand the rest of my brothers’ and family’s story, nothing beats a map ! Below :
See you next week, and in the meantime, hop aboard the dream machine !
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