"Made of Star Stuff" © 2021

                                                     

    “Made of Star Stuff”

Gazing up through the dark mystery of night 
And contemplating the vast array of countless stars,
I never imagined that these orbs of light, in all their magnificence,
Had anything whatsoever to do with me. 
Experiencing a separation between those stars and myself,
A distance much greater than the awesome physical one that separates us,
I feel an emptiness in my soul, as many people do 
That perceives these heavenly patterns of light, adorning the night sky,
As precious jewels asking nothing more of us 
Than to simply gaze at them in childlike wonder.
Perhaps this illusion of separateness from something so beautiful
Contributes to the pain felt in each lonely heart on Earth,
Suggesting to us that we are isolated from everyone and everything.

If we were fully knowledgable of a forgotten truth 

That tells us we are, instead, very much part of all creation,
Would we still be plagued by an insatiable longing 
For a closer relationship to ourselves and each other?
If we were completely aware that the radiance we collectively admire
Reflects back to Earth a dance of light that is also within us,
Would we not see ourselves, and indeed, all of our world, much differently?
The reality is that at the deepest level of our being, 
Every one of us is the cosmic universe in human form.
In fact, all life is an interconnected, evolving mosaic of elements
Created from the alchemy of massive, exploding stars.
Those stars have spend millions of years turning energy into matter,
While birthing the very atoms that compose everything in nature.

Rather than feeling separate, we might instead contemplate 

Those chains of celestial events within those stars
That manifest the elements of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorous.
By acknowledging that these same particles support the processes within that give us life, 
We then might be better able to connect our bodies and minds 
To that cosmological drama played out billions of light years away.
This delicate light dance of molecules within the bodies of evolving stars,
Has miraculously brought forth a biology we have come to know as life on Earth.
Like the stars, of which we are in awe, we, too, shine emanating a celestial light,
As we continuously burn with an inner fire of process and change.
The energy and mass that swirls in stars, like a Van Gogh painting,
Also moves within each of us in fluid relationship to the cosmos.
All 7 octillion atoms making up our body owe their origin to the explosions of supernovas. 

Within the perpetual motion of nature, we exchange those stellar atoms

With the clouds, and the trees, and the flowers and the animals of both land and water,
Always circulating in unity and forming new patterns of vibrant energy.
We are not merely in the universe, but rather we are of the universe, 
We are the paradox of unique individualized expression and interdependence,
While harmonizing all that we see and do in a divine symphony of light.
The stars, the Earth, the people, all of nature and even me -
We all compose the wondrous web of the amazing miracle we call life.
With this insight of remembering our oneness with the stars,
I now can perceive more than twinkling orbs of light blinking in the night sky.
I see radiant heavenly bodies courageously following their destiny 
And freely giving their essence so that all in the galaxy may flourish and grow.

Everyone is light, all the Cosmos is love and everything is made of stardust.

“Some part of our being knows where we came from. We long to return; and we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We are made of star stuff.”  ~ Carl Sagan