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Developing Our Star Connections
We are stardust.
Stories from cultures around the world tell of our "coming from the stars." Grandmother Anna Swarts,104 yr-old Kalahari San Bushman in Africa, tells it this way:
"To tell you the truth, these stars that we see in the sky...In the beginning there was nothing. The stars were there. The universe was there and there were the stars. God came, and the material of those stars, the stars rained dust down onto the earth, which was a flower. It was a flower! This is where humanity came from. The dust of the stars connected with the flower of the earth. We are the people now who are the descendents of the people who are no longer here, who evolved from the stars."
More recent stories tell us that all the atoms in our bodies were created in the moment of the Big Bang. These made the stars and planets and earth, and formed into us. As Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams explain it in The View From the Center of the Universe,
"Human beings are made of the rarest material in the universe: stardust. Except for hydrogen, which makes up about 1/10 of your weight, the rest of your body is stardust...Stardust is the atoms themselves. Hydrogen and helium came straight out of the Big Bang. Essentially all other atoms were created later inside stars. These atoms are the building blocks of everything in the universe that is visible."
Everything we see is stardust. The tree on our street, the jaguar stalking in the jungle, the lover in our bed are all stardust, molded into different external forms. What we think of as great differences are actually and truly "all our relations."
Since we all come from the same atoms, the same stardust, we are deeply connected--not just with other humans, but with all beings.
We need to feel this in our bodies, in our cells. The Mayans say "In La'kesh"--I am another yourself. I suggest that most of us understand this in our minds--'yeah, that makes sense'--yet do not experience sensations of connection in our everyday lives. We do not perceive others as ourselves.
Even when we're not religious, our concepts have been hugely influenced by science and the Church. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," intone the priests when we bury someone, and on Ash Wednesday to remind us of our return to the dust. Yet the Church forgot to mention that we are not just dust, but stardust! Feels a little different! Think of the Implications. Dust is dirty, refuse, something to be swept away. Stardust sparkles, shines, radiates, is light. We are light.
Expanding Our Ancestry
When I first heard that all humans come from 12 to 14 people in Africa (known through DNA testing and genome coding) I was thrilled: it made it so much easier to visualize my ancestry going back in time, to honor those original humans as my relatives. The stardust connection goes even deeper. It helps us shift perspective from looking at those pretty, twinkling lights in the sky to experiencing ourselves as part of them. Being related to them. Wondering 'which star do I come from?' Exploring how to make a relationship with our star ancestors, and learn more.
From this perspective, the cosmos becomes alive. It is no longer a conglomeration of dead matter, rocks, meteors, nebulas, and dark matter. It opens a pathway to meaning.
When we look out a window at trees, or our garden, or a beautiful landscape, the feeling is usually something like 'I am in here looking at that out there.' We don't experience ourselves as part of the landscape, but as other. When we're in a forest, crunching leaves underfoot, listening to the soundscape of birds, wind, locusts--the song of the ecosystem--or we are breathing in alignment with the sap of a tree, we have the sensation of being a part of it, not separate, not other-than-forest.
I watch my beekeeper husband do this. His consciousness is so entrained with the rhythms of his hives, awareness of what's blooming (or not) for the bees to eat, their moods and reactions, that they are like children: extensions of him, part of his energy field. Our attunement is so deep that we notice when the hum/vibration changes, without conscious thought, and look up to find where a swarm is moving. It's awareness, like when we recognize our baby's cry in a crowded room or know when a loved one is in trouble. Embracing our environment within our field of awareness changes our relationship to it. Sending our consciousness out to the stars or back to the Big Bang leads to a different identity.
Developing Our Star Connections
You may remember the star despacho ceremonies I've been offering over the past few years. What I've been noticing lately is that what began as a spirit calling, developed as a heart-filled and very concrete ceremonial practice for "calling the star beings down to help us in the times that are coming," has evolved into opening after opening of awareness and connection.
Creating a relationship, through many ceremonies, changed the way star beings interact with me, both literally and energetically. Star beings now come to my journeys and advise me. They guide me to different embodiment and vibrations. They guide me to amazing dimensions of the cosmos. They've become allies. When I share and transmit the Munay-Ki Starkeeper rite to others, I am in the field of star energy.
I still look at the sky every night, watching the precession, waiting for the edge of the Milky Way to reappear in all its glory as solstice approaches. Now the watching is accompanied with heart knowing, deep feelings of connection, and threads of being in this together, truly.
This is always true in shamanic work: the deeper we enter into relationship--with a Power Animal or element or ceremony--the stronger and wider the connection with experience and wisdom that comes.
I know some of you already work with the stars. To the rest of you I say, please join us! Explore! Invite the star beings into your ceremonies, your light work, your healing, your gardens-really, into whatever you do! Create a reciprocal relationship so they will help you in your luminous becoming. Do as our Q'ero Kuraq' Aq'ullaq' teachers have always done: "masticate the wisdom of the stars."
We can find deep companionship with our star relatives in these times of transforming and creation. This companionship will serve us well in bringing the present forth from the future. They will help us create new imaginal disks of what we are becoming, just as the liquid in a butterfly cocoon holds the imprint of the entire butterfly to be formed. They will assist us in our stewardship of the time to come, and of all future generations. They will help us manifest beauty and transformation during this auspicious time of prophesy.
Meg Beeler/Earth Caretakers
Copyright � 2012
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Star Despacho Mt. Shasta
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"The experience of merging with a star will bring us back to a center of strength and light that cannot be damaged or depleted and that has the power to light up the world." -- Sandra Ingerman
"The wider our sense of identity, the more likely we will be able to experience our genuine connection to the universe...we humans are luminous, stardust beings. When we see ourselves this way, we take the first step toward identifying with our place in the universe that we have convincing evidence actually exists." -- Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams, The View From the Center of the Universe
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