We're all made from stars--literally and metaphorically
Welcome to the wonder, the awe! Did you know this? It’s completely, mythically, and scientifically true!! It’s astonishing, really. Your body, my body, everyone’s, or every thing’s, material body (as in our self) is made of foundational elements like oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, iron, sodium, etc. All of these elements were created by stars in the cosmos!
How deep is our connection to the stunning multiverse? Deeper than skin, deeper than bone, deeper than blood—it is fundamentally elemental. These elements mix and combine over and over to create matter—the physicality of life. Remember, the periodic table poster that hung in your middle school or high school science classrooms? That’s another version of a star chart! The elements on the periodic table are star creations.
So, the song “We are the World”? Nails it.
We are the world, the universe, the multiverse, the cosmos. And the cosmos is us. Our solar system, planets, and life on Earth are made of star elements that continually recombine into different forms like water, or trees, or animals, or dirt, or you. These star elements are billions of years old. And because they are, you are too. You and everything else on Earth are both brand-new and vastly old.
“We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins, carbon in our souls, and nitrogen in our brains. 93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames, we are all just stars that have people names.”--NIKITA GILL
Cosmos, Beauty, and You
“Cosmos” comes directly from the Greek word kosmos meaning order—especially excellent order—of the universe, including the Earth (world). Cosmos also has a clear secondary meaning associated with beauty, arrangement, and adornment. So, it’s easy to see how the word “cosmetic” (kosmetike) came into being! “Cosmetic” means way more than mere commercial beauty products! Cosmetic/ kosmetike is the art and technique of applying the excellent order of the cosmos into awe-inspiring design and beauty. This is what Life does—it creates loveliness of the highest order. Which includes you!
As Woman Standing Shining / Pat McCabe says, “You are born into beauty, as beauty, for a joyful life.” Your natal chart fits hand to glove into the Cosmos’s beautiful order of amazing cosmic diversity paired with unique individualism, and it throws in sparkly sprinkles of mad skills, smarts, and symmetry. So cool, right?
As a picture, your natal (birth) chart is a visual astronomical snapshot of where the planets were in the starry skies at the moment you were born. And the natal chart speaks symbolically to you about your unique star patterns and interactions. Astrology has always been intimately tied to astronomy. How could it not be? Astrology depends upon astronomical observations of the stars and planets and artfully uses Story’s paintbox of metaphors, images, and symbols. The shared bloodlines between astronomy and astrology are beauty, awe, meaning, patterns, time, and the movements of our solar system planets.
And, here’s a lovely related poem by Tyler Kent White (all rights reserved).
Evolution of a Galaxy
One night
when you were just a star,
someone hung every hope,
every wish, every dream,
they ever had
from your limbs.
So if you ever feel inferior,
ever start to doubt
your beauty or brilliance
just remember:
you have constellations
lining the cathedral walls of your chest,
a moon for a heart,
and the sunlight pouring through your skin.
You are a symphony of stardust
and you were born to shine.
© Tyler Kent White
About the Author
Margaret Merisante, PhD, is the astrologer and founder of Awestrology. She’s also a comparative mythologist, an avid amateur herbalist, and a lover of the astonishing natural world.
