The heavenly motions... are nothing but a continuous song for several voices, perceived not by the ear but by the intellect, a figured music which sets landmarks in the immeasurable flow of time.
Interpretation
Kepler suggests that the cosmic movements are like a complex symphony understood intellectually rather than auditorily.
In this quote, Johannes Kepler reflects on the idea that the motions of celestial bodies create a harmonious order that transcends mere physical sound. He likens these movements to a 'continuous song,' which, while not heard by the ears, is appreciated intellectually as a profound structure that provides a sense of orientation in the vastness of time and space. This highlights the beauty of the universe and encourages a deeper understanding of the cosmos beyond sensory perception.
In practice
In a lecture about the cosmos, one might quote Kepler to illustrate the beauty of the universe.
...Those laws are within the grasp of the human mind. God wanted us to recognize them by creating us after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts... and if piety allow us to say so, our understanding is in this respect of the same kind as the divine, at least as far as we are able to grasp something of it in our mortal life.
A most unfailing experience... of the excitement of sublunary (that is, human) natures by the conjunctions and aspects of the planets has instructed and compelled my unwilling belief.
We find, therefore, under this orderly arrangement, a wonderful symmetry in the universe, and a definite relation of harmony in the motion and magnitude of the orbs, of a kind that is not possible to obtain in any other way.
I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them, far far away from the boundaries of Egypt. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice; if you are enraged with me, I shall bear it. See, I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him.
Eyesight should learn from reason.
I measured the skies, now the shadows I measure, Sky-bound was the mind, earth-bound the body rests. [Kepler's epitaph]
When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.
Countless religious innovators over the years have played the game of establishing an identity for themselves by accentuating their otherness.
The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
The great things in life are what they seem to be. And for that reason, strange as it may sound to you, often are very difficult to interpret (understand). Great passions are for the great of souls. Great events can only be seen by people who are on a level with them. We think we can have our visions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing visions have to be paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine.
Despite the many iniquities that have found entrance into the practices of image-worship as it is in vogue now, I do not condemn it. Ay, where would I have been if I had not been blessed with the dust of the holy feet of that orthodox, image-worshipping Brahmin!
breathing, sleeping, drinking, eating, working, dreaming, everything we do is dying. to live, in fact, is to die.
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