17 May 2011

Starseeds and Seeds of Truth

Some things are too "fringe" even for me.

A friend sent a link to a website...we both like creative paintings and art, and she wanted to bring a particularly nice graphic to my attention. It was very good. But for once, the visual is beside the point.

The graphic was on a website that was all about "star seeds" and indigo children. I'm not here to say whether those ideas are true or not. I don't know. All I know is that it doesn't quite resonate with me. Something's a half bubble off, but I can't quite put my finger on just what it is. There is a part of me that wants to be an "indigo" or a "starseed". I've always had an interest in science, space and astronomy. Blame it on mom...she uncharacteristically (thank goodness) let me get up to see the moon landing when I was 4. I was hooked. I wheedled, whined and sneaked (the night launches) to see every Apollo launch and landing possible after that. After putting my own little one on the school bus, beat a path to the tv to watch the Endeavor launch.

Speaking of tv...I'm a huge Mythbusters fan...back to that seemingly random statement in a minute.

One of the characteristics of a "star child" according to this website is a fascination with space and astronomy. Well, I have that one covered. Still, the whole indigo children / star child thing doesn't seem a 100% on target.

I've always loved the constellation Orion, and take great comfort in seeing it somehow. Was talking about this same topic with one of my like-minded soul-sisters one time. We picked a star to be "from", with the idea that our first impulse might hold some grain of truth, might be some clue. She picked the Pleiades. I picked Rigel from the Orion constellation. What that means, if anything, I've yet to figure out. I think it means I like the Orion constellation. Had to laugh at some of the people on the website claiming to be FROM Orion. That is the name of a pattern of stars as they appear from Earth. They are actually quite distant in 3 dimensional space, and if you got far enough away from earth, the pattern, thus "Orion" disappears and becomes meaningless.

Strike two for the star seeds.

Another thing from the "are you a star seed" list of questions is having a feeling that all religions are missing something. Amen to that.

A-HA! There are the dots to connect. Religions and star seeds...no one religion has all the truth. Neither does this "star seed" "indigo children" construct. All religions have some granule of truth or benefit or they wouldn't survive the test of time. "New age" beliefs share some traits like that with orthodox 'religion', in function, if not in form.

Human nature is rich in dichotomies. We are social and need to belong, yet we need to think of ourselves as unique and special. Religions and belief groups meet both of those needs. It seems to me that part of the impetus for religious participation and the interest in 'star seeds' and 'indigo children' is a need for specialness while being part of a tribe. The balance of those two seemingly opposing needs is different for each person...some are driven primarily by the rules and expectations of their 'tribe', as with religious fundamentalist. Others are more 'lone wolf'...but still take pleasure in meeting those of like mind and equal independence. But the seeds within each, the core grains of truth are the same for both motifs.

That's where the Mythbusters reference comes in. Their experimentation often finds the "grain of truth behind the myth".

This dual need of human nature is one of those grains that show how much old religion and 'new age' really are alike...and should be taken with the same grain. Of salt that is.

At the same time, as much as religion and 'new age' arouse our skeptical instincts, there is another grain of truth to been here.

Let's change the TV channel again...from the moon landing to Mythbusters, now back to Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

The "Starseeds" are expressing in intuitive/spiritual terms what Dr. Sagan expressed in literal, logical, scientific terms. "We are all star stuff".

The atoms that make up our bodies...the iron, calcium, carbon, all of it...those literal atoms were literally created in the hearts of distant and ancient stars. We are all literally thinking, feeling, communicating expressions of the cosmos...the stars. We are deeply connected to ALL that is, every place, every dimension, every time. We are ALL children of the stars, literally and symbolically. That is the breathtaking beauty behind the scientific phrase "time-space continuum". That is the spiritual common ground between the new and the orthodox, the fringe and the fundamental.

"We are all star stuff"...we are all special and unique in the most connected and egalitarian way possible.

And in so being, in being both special and one, we echo the stars that bore us, and the cosmos in which both we and the stars exist.

www.modern-oracle-tarot.com

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