Reflection
“There is a fundamental reason why we look at the sky with wonder and longing—for the same reason that we stand, hour after hour, gazing at the distant swell of the open ocean. There is something like an ancient wisdom, encoded and tucked away in our DNA, that knows its point of origin as surely as a salmon knows its creek. Intellectually, we may not want to return there, but the genes know, and long for their origins—their home in the salty depths. But if the seas are our immediate source, the penultimate source is certainly the heavens… The spectacular truth is—and this is something that your DNA has known all along—the very atoms of your body—the iron, calcium, phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and on and on—were initially forged in long-dead stars. This is why, when you stand outside under a moonless, country sky, you feel some ineffable tugging at your innards. We are star stuff. Keep looking up.
Gerald D. Waxman, Astronomical Tidbits: A Layperson’s Guide to Astronomy
Prayer
The heavens keep telling the wonders of God, and the skies declare what God has done.
Psalm 19:1
Action
Reflect on your immersion in the natural world. Give yourself time to enjoy that connection. Think of the different perspective in seeing yourself as made of the stars rather than the dust of the earth.
Suggested Reading
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.
Psalm 139:14
God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17
The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it.
Pope Francis
Humanity, take a good look at yourself. Inside, you’ve got heaven and earth, and all of creation. You’re a world—everything is hidden in you.
Hildegard of Bingen
We are talking only to ourselves. We are not talking to the rivers, we are not listening to the wind and stars. We have broken the great conversation. By breaking that conversation we have shattered the universe. All the disasters that are happening now are a consequence of that spiritual ‘autism.’
Thomas Berry
What is the human? The human is a space, an opening, where the universe celebrates its existence.
Brian Swimme
The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.
Carl Sagan
There’s a flame of magic inside every stone and every flower, every bird that sings and every frog that croaks. There’s magic in the trees and the hills and the river and the rocks, in the sea and the stars and the wind, a deep, wild magic that’s as old as the world itself. It’s in you too, and in me, and in every living creature, be it ever so small. Even the dirt I’m sweeping up now is stardust. In fact, all of us are made from the stuff of stars.
Kate Forsyth
You are a child of the divine, you are compressed stardust, you are a human being. You have a responsibility to cause as little harm to yourself and others as possible. To live the best, biggest life you can and to leave everyone you come across better than you found them.
Bakara Wintner
That is what all creatures great and small are made of. Leftover stardust. An atom exploded, and all the dust became the planets, the stars…and us. That’s all anything amounts to.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
We were born of stars and in death we will return to them. Let’s not strive to be black holes in the meantime. Let’s illuminate the world instead of darkening it, instead of tearing it to pieces. Let’s prove we are worthy of being stardust.
Courtney M. Privet