Let the stars remind us

​Have you ever looked up at the star-studded sky and wondered how zillions of years of history is looking down on us? I feel a quiet rush of wonder through my veins to see eternity wrapped in each moment that presents itself. I begin to ponder why most of us never fully embrace it. Perhaps, we have always allowed the mirage of what isn’t there to delude us. 

This practice of staying with the present, with what is showing up is so simple, yet so difficult. We are constantly being pushed and pulled in opposite directions – the irreversibility of the past and the uncertainty of the future – so much so that we miss the certainty of the present. 
 
There’s no denying that the present might show up in a messy, tangled way. The more we struggle to get out of it, the more trapped we get – it gets messier. Or perhaps, we might be presented with heart-filling joyful circumstances but instead of offering ourselves fully into the happiness of that moment we might begin to fret over its ephemerality and tighten our grip, thereby somewhat missing out on it. Isn’t that like trying to tighten your grip over a fistful of sand? It seems to me somewhat like being caught in “Devil’s Snare” – the vicious plant in Harry Potter. When you fall into the tangled web of this plant, the more you fret and flail, the deeper you go in its grip. Only by breathing in deeply, only by releasing any urge to fight against it are you able to release yourself from its trap.
 
As I look at the stars, I realize that they weren’t always these twinkling shining beauties. A star is born when gaseous nebula collapses under gravity – when it gives in. And even these seemingly eternal objects are indeed mortal – nothing lasts forever. May be when life appears to be dismantling, we can breathe into the discomfort, into the tightness, into the places where we are holding on a little too tight. As we crumble under the gravity of pleasure and pain, expectation and fear, we are born again - just like the stars; for after all, we are quite literally what stars are made of.
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