Star Matter

I was walking down the street in the afternoon on my way to the Kupembona’s house, I can’t remember where I was coming from, but that’s not important. It was a typical afternoon, a typical moment, and while I was walking, I looked down and saw a cigarette box lying in the middle of my path. There was nothing special about the cigarette box, I have seen many littering the landscape of Namibia along with all sorts of other rubbish. What was unique about this one particular piece of trash was that it evoked an intense feeling of anger in me.

I can’t say why I took more notice to this one piece of garbage than any others. I can only guess at that point I had seen so much trash littering the streets and the landscape (particularly in the location I had seen earlier that day) that this cigarette carton was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” and was the outlet for all of my pent up rage at litter throughout the world. I loathed this cigarette box and hated everything that it represented, particularly all of the trash ruining the landscapes of countless beautiful areas, all because some thoughtless individuals are too lazy to carry it to a rubbish bin (or because a government has too many selfish leaders to care about cleaning up the communities they don’t live in).

After my initial hatred had overcome me, a sense of clarity washed over me. Yes, I think a cigarette carton littering the streets is a bad use of resources and has a diminishing effect on the beauty of the surrounding area… BUT, I started to look beyond what it is, to what it was, and what it will become. A cigarette carton, like other trash, doesn’t come out of nowhere, it comes from a tree, a beautiful, life-giving tree, that grows from a seed, feeding on the sun, the air, and the earth. And from there, there are almost infinite possibilities of where some of the nutrients that nourished that tree to grow came from, from the carbon dioxide breath of a human or animal, or from a purifying rain shower, or from the soil newly enriched with a great ancestor that had passed away and returned to the earth. Then, in many years time (I’ll leave the figures to science to state), that same cigarette carton will break down and become soil yet again, to nourish a new plant to grow, and maybe flower, and purify the air and bring beauty to the people who see it.

And if you take it even further into the realms of space and beyond known time, everything is star matter. When the gases of our solar system exploded (I believe, with the guidance of a divine intelligence, call it whatever name you want), our sun and planets formed. And when our solar system has lived out its cycle, the sun will eat the planets and explode as a supernova… and again, all creation will be as one, gases floating in space, star matter waiting for the right collision to start creation anew.

If I was to hate the cigarette carton, I would have to hate everything that is has been and everything that it will be. I can’t possibly hate it now, then love it again in a few hundred years, then hate it, then love it, etcetera etcetera. If it was black and white, clearly is, was and will always be a cigarette carton that is littering the world, then maybe I could feel more justified in my feelings towards that little paper box… but it’s never that easy.

After my brain had wondered through the varying connections of life, spanned across the lifespan of the solar system and envisioned the many transformations and incarnations that cigarette carton might have taken, it finally bridged the connection to human beings.

Just like the beginning for all physical creation, the beautiful glowing gases, the star matter, we human beings have another beginning, going back to the beginning of time… we are souls, spirits, boundless conscious energy glowing with a radiance of love and light, similar to our creator. That is our “big bang”, our origins, where we begin, and what we return to.

What happens here on this planet, in this physical realm is but a blink in eternity. Some may forget their origins, they may forget who and what they truly are. Their lives might be lived like that of a cigarette box, wasted potential, a burden on society, like trash diminishing the beauty and harmony of the surrounding area, the community, the world. That person may be hated or loathed, maybe by a few or many, maybe by him or herself, and maybe even by you… but they can’t truly be hated, not really, because that’s not who they are, because that life will pass.

The star will breathe its final breath, and in a spectacular display devour the planets and the rest of the solar system in one burst of powerful energy and magnificent light, and once again all creation will be together as one, as star matter. The bad, the wrongs that person caused, will fade into time. Our human errors will be eclipsed by the perfect love of our spiritual nature. The light of the soul will shine again, as it was always meant to. And we will see each other for who we truly are… as miraculous spiritual beings. And in that seeing, in that love, we will once again be together as one, as it was before and as it will be again. Star matter, shining souls, that’s what we truly are, and that is magnificently beautiful, no matter what form it temporarily takes on.