Just Look Up
There is a reassurance in the stars. It's where I seek refuge when I want to contemplate life, my thoughts or the galaxy itself but on this particular night, I sought familiarity. Stepping into the warm night I searched the sky for patterns of constellations. The milky way prominently showed itself against the obsidian sky, the seven sisters were clustered in a gossipy circle while Mars glowed red close to Saturn. I lost myself momentarily forgetting where I was until I lowered my gaze to the East Texas landscape. For a brief moment, I was transported to a different but very familiar place where I star gazed regularly for decades, home.
I imagined while looking up that I was standing on my deck viewing the curve of the hillside, the expanse of the ocean under the black ink sky with the outline of my neighbor's house and trees framing the stars. What came as a surprise to me, is my memory of stars is connected directly to the landscape. Millions of miles of points of light grounded to the earth.
My fondest memory of stars was the illusion created when the fishing boats were out on the blackest moonless nights, the horizon would disappear and merge into the ocean suspending the stars and fishing boat lights in a seemingly unending floating galaxy. The cliff's edge seemed to drop into space rather than earth.
Everything we are is from the universe, wrote the authors of the book: Living with the Stars: How the Human Body is Connected to the Life Cycles of the Earth, the Planets, and the stars.
"We really didn't realize how impermanent we are, and that our bodies are made of remnants of stars and massive explosions in the galaxies. All the material in our bodies originates with that residual stardust, and it finds its way into plants, and from there into the nutrients that we need for everything we do—think, move, grow. And every few years the bulk of our bodies are newly created."
Joni Mitchell got it right. We really are stardust.
Our minds, galaxies of limitless possibilities. A web of invisible threads connects us to the universe, each other and what we are made of. Then there is the weight of it, the gravity, the force that holds us together like a magnetic pull to earth yet we always seek solace in the stars and their constant presence up above.
~kao
I imagined while looking up that I was standing on my deck viewing the curve of the hillside, the expanse of the ocean under the black ink sky with the outline of my neighbor's house and trees framing the stars. What came as a surprise to me, is my memory of stars is connected directly to the landscape. Millions of miles of points of light grounded to the earth.
I was once asked if the stars in Big Sur are like the stars in Tahoe. At the time I thought the question absurd. I wondered how different could they possibly be? The woman who asked referred to the stars as 'Tahoe Stars' as though they belonged nowhere else. Yet they bind us together with the reassurance that they exist everywhere we go. We just have to look up.
Texas, California, Antarctica, France stars couldn't possibly be different. They do change of course, dimming and fading from city lights, sometimes twinkling brighter in higher elevations, obscured by clouds or fog, but they are always the same stars no matter where we go.
Are we rooted to the stars as deeply as we are rooted to the earth, our history, our humanity?
My own memory of stars depends on the outline of rooftops, trees or mountains I viewed them from. As a child, it was framed through my window over the roof of the enclosed patio where I'd seek out the first star to wish upon. That was my introduction to stargazing. Even then, I could count on them being there in their sameness.
Texas, California, Antarctica, France stars couldn't possibly be different. They do change of course, dimming and fading from city lights, sometimes twinkling brighter in higher elevations, obscured by clouds or fog, but they are always the same stars no matter where we go.
Are we rooted to the stars as deeply as we are rooted to the earth, our history, our humanity?
My own memory of stars depends on the outline of rooftops, trees or mountains I viewed them from. As a child, it was framed through my window over the roof of the enclosed patio where I'd seek out the first star to wish upon. That was my introduction to stargazing. Even then, I could count on them being there in their sameness.
My fondest memory of stars was the illusion created when the fishing boats were out on the blackest moonless nights, the horizon would disappear and merge into the ocean suspending the stars and fishing boat lights in a seemingly unending floating galaxy. The cliff's edge seemed to drop into space rather than earth.
Everything we are is from the universe, wrote the authors of the book: Living with the Stars: How the Human Body is Connected to the Life Cycles of the Earth, the Planets, and the stars.
"We really didn't realize how impermanent we are, and that our bodies are made of remnants of stars and massive explosions in the galaxies. All the material in our bodies originates with that residual stardust, and it finds its way into plants, and from there into the nutrients that we need for everything we do—think, move, grow. And every few years the bulk of our bodies are newly created."
Joni Mitchell got it right. We really are stardust.
Our minds, galaxies of limitless possibilities. A web of invisible threads connects us to the universe, each other and what we are made of. Then there is the weight of it, the gravity, the force that holds us together like a magnetic pull to earth yet we always seek solace in the stars and their constant presence up above.
~kao
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