December 3 - Stars

Astronomers acknowledged today that they have miscounted the stars. There are probably three times as many stars as previously believed. Ah, scientists, always catching up a few thousand years later to the poets. Poets have always known that you cannot count the stars. Twenty years ago I sent out a Christmas card which stated "We are made of the same stuff as the stars. Look to the night sky. Greet your brothers and sisters."

It is true. We were born from the same stuff as the stars, and we carry ancient stars within our bodies. I can't remember which character in a science fiction story always referred to human beings as "carbon units" because our bodies contain so much of this element. Now we know that carbon was created in the heart of a star, long, long ago. The iron that carries oxygen through the rivers of our bloodstream was created when a star died. 

Lao Tsu was said to have been conceived by a shooting star which sparked life in his virgin mother. How closely this mirrors the truth of our origins. Elements from the stars sparked life in a virgin, sleeping earth in to life and more importantly, in to light. 

Before we could look at stars through a telescope, many cultures carved the sacred spirals in to stone and wood. In this photograph of stars, taken by the Hubbell telescope, pay particular attention to the little galaxy, down in the right hand corner. It looks exactly like the spirals on the stone which marks the passage in to Newgrange in Ireland.