One Word For Two Things

What does Sagittarius or Venus mean? Words like these meant completely different things millenia ago than what they do now. For one to increase, the other had to dwindle and fade.

Icker threaded his way down through the rocks and thickets to the usual spot, a grassy clearing directly waterside. Here, just in this place, the vivid wildness of the falling mountain stream calmed itself briefly, and one could see the island on the far bank, where too a flat space presented out of the forested confusion. And though the natural noise all about was overpowering, just here a strange tunnel of quietness connected the two sides, nestled and secluded in the wild. And he sat down and waited, in the customary manner, expectant but not impatient, opening himself, and passing his attentiveness to the far shore. Taking care not to look with eye, but to sense with force of…