When You Wish Upon a Star: New Years Comet, Meteor Shower, Sparkling Wine

Say goodbye to 2016 and to all of those “stars” we lost and do it in cosmic style by gazing skyward where you might catch a falling star to wish on and see a comet too while listening to “star” songs from videos by

• Maurice White of Earth Wind and Fire
• Prince,
• Bowie,
• Leonard Cohen,
• and believe it or not, The Muppets (in Star Wars regalia!)

while toasting them with sparkling wine on Sparkling Wine Day! All this and more below!

(Some ideas on which sparklers and what to pair them with here in the post “Around the World in Bubbles on Sparkling Wine Day New Year’s Eve”).

According to JPL, on New Years eve and early in 2017, Venus will shine its brightest in years, and we’ll have nice view of the moon and Mars too.

But the real star of the show on New Years Eve is the fireworks provided by the annual Quadrantids meteor shower which is basically the leftovers of a comet that broke up in the 1490s.

And if you have binoculars or a telescope at hand, JPL says that “Comet 45P is visible just after sunset at the beginning of the month very low in the southwestern sky, and will be visible just before sunrise by month’s end.”

Watch a video from JPL about all of this and learn more here.

If you are looking for a list of stars to say goodbye to, here’s my 2016 list of 54 stars who shown on and influenced me. It includes Maurice White of Earth Wind and Fire and David Bowie too who had a song “Shining Star (Makin’ My Love” in 1999 but he released the haunting, artistic, brilliant, and beautiful  “Blackstar just before he died:

Also on my list to toast is Prince; here’s his “Baby I’m a Star” from 1984:

Leonard Cohen became a “fallen star” in 2016 as well; here’s his 2016 song “Traveling Light” and it’s one of my favorite songs from 2016 (along with Bowie’s “Blackstar”) so I will definitely be toasting him while listening to it as it too is so fitting for this time of reflection:

Finally, as a tribute to the fallen stars of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher here’s a medley of “Lucky Star” (which Reynolds sings near the conclusion of Singing in the Rain) with “When You Wish Upon A Star” sung by The Muppets as Star Wars characters as the closing number, along with Mark Hamill (as both Himself and Luke Skywalker), C-3PO, R2-D2 and Chewbacca; Eddie Fisher, husband to Debbie Reynolds, and father to Carrie Fisher, also sang this song.

So what are you wishing for as we say goodbye to 2016 and hello to 2017? Who are you toasting?

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.

T. S. Eliot.

How do we respond to T.S. Eliot’s prompt? Some questions I am pondering– and maybe you are too– that I will be considering soon on Art Predator as well as on Wine Predator were inspired by and adapted from a list by Jason Womack of Get Momentum:

• What are the top 10 events of 2016 for me?
• What did I do with my time that I am proud of?
• What am I grateful for that happened in 2016?
• What did I learn about myself from these events?
• How did I apply what I learned to myself as a person?
• How did I apply these lessons to the work I do in the world?
• What is the best decision I made in 2016?
• What should I do less of  in 2017?
• What should I do more of in 2017?
• What should I eliminate in 2017?
• What should I bring into my life in 2017 that is missing?

I encourage you to go for a walk in nature. Continue or establish a New Years ritual for yourself. If you’re in Ventura on New Years Day, head to Marina Park and blow in the New Year.

So HAPPY NEW YEAR! And cheers! May 2017 BE MAGIC!