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# Origin Story
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/origin-story/
- Published: 2026-04-02T20:07:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T20:10:02.000Z
- Description: “Origin Story,” an homage to the many lenses of our origins, writ small and writ epic, and what ties us together through time and space, written April 02, poem 092 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, "Statue, 'Diana of Versailles, Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt,' on displ
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Homage, Long form musings, Poems, Ancestors, Ancient Greek, April, Artemis, Celestial, Diana, Fertility, Florida, Goddess, Humanity, Hunt, Kennedy Space Center, Light, Long-form, Moon, Mythology, Namesake, NASA, Origin Story, Roman, Skies, Space, Spring, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

Standing on the crowded shoulder  
of a humid Florida highway  
in July 1969, my mother   
and her family stood as one,   
as asphalt-covered ground shook  
and the hot summer air rumbled.  
  
*Oh my God!* 
*There it is!*   
A voice arose from  
a hushed mass of humans.  
  
Necks arched back,   
eyes all aloft.  
Hands cupped over brows.  
Like so many hunters,   
they tracked the arc   
of NASA Apollo 11's  
launch trajectory.   
  
Her hand high,   
my mother's index finger   
traced the rocket's roaring,  
glowing flames  
and cottony contrail plumes  
as it sped through open skies.  
  
My ancestors, my mother,   
were there, bearing witness   
to USA's first manned mission  
en route to our Moon.  
  
\= = = =  
  
My mother has long held that  
her life's most magical moment  
was when she saw mankind  
soar to the heavens —   
more so than her wedding day,  
or the birth of her children.  
  
It is this core memory,   
the one she captured   
as a girl of not yet twelve  
that laid the foundations for   
my parents' future decisioning  
in selecting my namesake.   
  
Decades later, I was born   
under a waxing crescent  
in the first lunar cycle   
to follow a late September   
Harvest Moon.  
  
I hail from Greek mythology,  
where I am called Artemis.  
Savvy hunter under dark-lit skies,   
she is rare, one of twelve Olympians.  
  
Artemis, the Archer.  
Drawn to and of the wild.  
Skilled with a bow,   
unyielding and precise.  
  
Yet, still tender  
to those in need.  
Protector of fertility,   
overseer of childbirth.  
  
The elder, wiser sister,   
an all-knowing caretaker   
to Apollo,   
that younger, impish twin.  
  
Over time, Artemis merged   
in collective myth and memory  
with the Ancient Roman divinity,  
the Goddess of the Moon, who,   
like my government name, is Diana.  
  
"Dia-“ means divine, goddess,  
of the Ancient Greek dios,   
belonging to heaven.  
Dium, the universe.  
And the Sanskrit Divya,   
meaning: celestial.  
  
I am born of the chase, of the light.  
Patroness of the crossroads,   
I am a perfect match for   
my ever-balancing Libra scales.  
  
From my earliest moments   
of self-awareness, I have  
loved the ancient tales of,  
and homage to, my origins.  
  
I have felt kinship   
to our lunar neighbor,   
my sister in purpose   
and in name.  
  
\= = = =   
  
Last evening,   
in the waning light   
of an early April dusk   
on the Florida coast,   
Artemis II lifted off from   
Kennedy Launch Complex 39B.  
  
It would prove to be NASA’s   
first human-helmed  
mission to the moon  
in nearly fifty years.  
  
Half a century since   
my mother, so long ago,   
stood transfixed   
on that hot tar road.  
  
Last night, as the boom and smoke   
filled the Atlantic-ringed horizon,  
awed crowds exclaimed in unison:   
“Oh my God!” “Oh my God!”   
  
I know this, not only in spirit,  
but because I have   
friends and neighbors   
who filmed the sacred minutes   
just before and after the launch  
on their iphones from the   
Kennedy Space Center viewing stands  
and had shared this joy with me.  
  
\= = = =   
  
A moment for innovation:  
Held in their hands, each of my   
friends' wee devices contain  
more computing power alone  
than the sum of all the computers  
that the 1969 Launch Control Center   
had at their disposal.  
  
More technology  
— often found casually stuffed   
into a hoodies' kangaroo pouch  
when not filming or scrolling —  
than it had taken last century   
to get men from Earth  
past our atmosphere  
onto the lunar surface  
and safely back home.  
A pocket rocket, indeed.  
  
Then and always,   
scales at balance:  
Hope tinged with Audacity;  
Precision undergirded by equations.  
  
\= = = =   
  
On the ground, and in the sky,  
the divine and the magic,  
the wonder and the wisdom,  
meets at the crossroads with science.  
  
We know from school teachers —  
informed by Carl Sagan and Moby,  
that: ‘we are all made of stars.’  
(“Star-stuff,” to fully quote Carl.)  
  
Throughout time, our pull   
from the Moon in turn draws our tides,   
which has fed our planet  
and kept humanity humming.  
  
For a divine instant last night,  
those pressed together  
on Cape Canaveral —  
and those of us viewing remotely   
from streamed live feeds   
and TV screens and shared clips —   
we all forgot, for a tick, about politics   
and the toll of umbrage and war.  
In that sacred space,   
Humanity was as one.  
  
In that planetary pause, we recalled:  
we are bound to our ancestors  
through the fabric of our skies,  
and through the forces of light above.  
  
This morning, in a new dawn,   
can we maintain the magic   
of shared moments?  
Look up, and feel amazement.   
After all, it’s our Origin Story.