The Lost Star Tribes

Once there was a star.

She and her star friends decided to accept a very dangerous mission. They said yes to the mission because they wanted to spread more light throughout the many universes. This was their core essence: light bringers.

They had done many missions before, more than could be counted.

Some of the missions were super fun and some were really weird and some were unexpectedly hard. But even the hard ones resulted in a glorious victory made all the more sweet by the difficulty of the passage.

To do this new mission, they had to leave their big beautiful star bodies and enter a different body.

The star took the hardest assignment which was on a small planet which she had helped to create many aeons earlier.

It was a beautiful planet. Blue and green were its colors.

To help, the star had to shift her beingness into a new body called human.

The biology of the human body didn’t allow all the star’s light to flow.

Her light had to be… compressed.

At first she could do this. She sucked her light in tight, all the way in, until it was a small but mighty sphere that could hide away in this new body form.

This was a very hard thing to experience but she knew she could do it and that it would not last long and she believed in her mission.

She was only supposed to be there for one human life period. She knew she could do that.

Down on the planet, in her temporary human body, something went wrong with the entire mission. Everyone’s connections back to their true homes were abruptly broken. Like a radio signal suddenly silenced.

In their human bodies, without their star connection, they could no longer find each other. They felt blind and lost.

Without their star connection, each of the starhumans began to forget who they truly were and they lost their memory of their energy arts which they could have used to reconnect at least with each other if not to their home.

The star was shocked by this grave turn of events.

At first she was determined and optimistic that she would be able to fix things. She always had before.

But a darkness came in and filled her and she could no longer see or even feel her own compressed starspark light within.

She was lost. Truly lost.

When her human body died, she would normally have followed her connection back home. But that connection was broken. Her beingness did not know where to go.

So she did the only thing she could think of which was to keep working the problem, to keep going.

She came into a new human body and went through another lifetime. And another. And another. Many many lives.

In each life, she remembered less and less of her true self and the inner darkness seemed to swallow her light entirely.

The same was happening to the other stars who joined her on the original mission to this planet.

Many lives passed.

At some point, in order to survive, she had split herself apart inside.

One version of her was moving through the human life she was in.

Another version of her retreated to a box of her own making in which she felt she would be safe. Where no one could get to her or see her.

She did not know why she needed to be in a tight small box to be safe, she just felt that this was the only way to exist. So that is what she did.

This part of herself, this wildling, contained her starspark which her human self had forgotten existed.

The wildling protected the starspark inside the box, alone and away from all others.

What the wildling did not know was that her starspark was so bright that the box she had made could not contain it fully.

Her light shone out through the box walls just a bit. To be sure it wasn’t very bright with all that wall stuff to push through, but it was very much there.

Others began to find her, drawn to the starspark in ways they could not explain.

Over time she made a new way of being in which her other aspect, the human one, built a life around the hidden starspark.

The human of her could see the starspark within despite the box walls and only over time came to understand that it was actually so much brighter and bigger than what she was seeing.

She tried every which way she could to set the starspark free so its full brilliance could come out.

It became every focus of her attention. And it was frustrating and painful to feel so close to her starspark but unable to set it free.

She felt like she was sitting by a very small fire on a very cold night when she craved a glorious bonfire of warmth and light and joviality which she now knew without any doubt was within.

All of this effort to open the starspark was affecting the wildling inside the box.

The wildling was having ideas come into her head out of the blue.

Ideas like maybe she could make more room for herself. Maybe she could stretch out. Maybe she could be free.

But she did not trust the human nor any of the other beings who came around her all the time offering to help her.

She believed deep down in her very soul that these would just hurt her more. So she stayed in the box even though she could not find a way to make it any larger than she already had.

She was stuck.

This filled her with rage.

She stormed around in the box.

She gnashed her teeth in the box.

She shook her fists and banged them against the walls in the box.

She cursed the box itself.

She forgot that she had made the box herself.

She could see that other beings were now receiving help and support and she cursed them too.

Why did she have no help? This was so unfair and she wept inconsolably all the while maintaining the security of the box impeccably.

The wildling had a lot of power even from inside her box. She could really throw a monkey wrench into the human’s desire to create.

She did this regularly once she figured out how. She did it with a spiteful, rageful glee.

One day the human brought another being in to help her with this. She had brought many in to help actually but this day was different.

On this day, the wildling was so tired. She sat in the back corner of her box feeling sad and alone and defeated. She was cold. She huddled her arms around her knees to conserve some of the warmth from her starspark for herself.

She decided to take a small risk. She decided to test the human by letting her see her. The other beings that were not human already saw her but this human, her human, was only aware of her but could not see her directly.

The wildling removed the vision barrier for a moment from the box and the human could see her in there, huddled in fear and sadness and rage in the corner like a wild hurt animal.

The wildling reminded the human of a tiny feral kitten she had loved who had chosen to brave the impossible sidewalk and chaos of human feet to race across and dash up her coat and into her hair on her shoulder for aid. To claim her as home.

The human sent through her heart a beam of love that was able to get through the box walls to the wildling.

The wildling considered the beam. She did not think she would allow it into herself just yet.

But she decided to do one thing. One thing she had never done before.

She made a small door. On the opposite side of the box, she made a small door and she placed a handle on it.

And she waited and watched.

The being that was helping that day suddenly saw the handle appear and he reached down and opened the door. It swing up and away leaving an opening out of which the wildling’s starspark rushed and flowed and shone so bright, so white, whiter than white.

The being could see past the white starlight spilling out everywhere to the small wildling, its source, now pressed up as far as she could go against the far wall.

The being reached forward a long graceful arm and hand, extended towards the wildling in invitation.

The being’s pink glowing rosy gold-tinged feeling made the wilding wonder.

The wildling wondered if maybe she could go outside the box now, if maybe she could leave the box and still be safe.

She saw her human then, there with the pink being and filled with love for her.

The wildling allowed she could come into the box with her and sit down nearby.

The human sat near the wildling and promised she would stay there as long as was needed. She spoke gently to the wildling, murmuring endearments and love to her. The human’s heart was full to bursting for this brave creature.

The wildling slowly allowed the human in to her own being, into knowingness about her through connection.

The pink being that had opened the door stayed with them and reminded them of some things they already knew but had forgotten.

Things like how they had come to this planet in the first place and how the new human body they had shifted themselves into was so tight that it felt like a box that was too small for their heartlights.

The human and the wildling together said a wordless ohhh at this as the remembrances came flooding back into them.

The human then told the wildling: your starspark is shining through the walls of your box. Did you know that? And the wildling turned to her in astonishment.

What was this? How could that be? She had made the box impenetrable.

Yes, the human said, from the outside.

But no box can contain this beautiful starlight that you are. No box ever anywhere could do that.

I think you made this box in the image of the forgotten first body. That tightness and bad fit.

The wildling cocked her head a little in curiosity at this. It had a sense of correctness.

The human said, I figured out some things already. I figured out that our mission is to teach the human body how to shine the light out from inside itself all the way.

To fix the old problem of the light being caught and stuck within.

It starts with the human body learning how to accept more light and to bring it in as nourishment like a plant does with the sun.

And then from there we can shine that light back out which feels beautiful to do in an unrestrained way, it feels like freedom and liberation. And it helps others do the same.

Now that I am in here with you, dear wildling, what I can see is that the light to shine outward is not just the light we let in.

The light to shine outward is the starspark within.

Wildling, said the human, I think if you wanted to, you could dissolve the box walls and let your starspark shine out fully.

If you wanted to, you could come be with me and shine the starspark out through the walls of this human body.

And this time, this human body would not compress or restrain you, would not hurt you as other human bodies did before you retreated from all the human bodies into your box which is like a body but held apart from all bodies.

This human body could support you and you it as your starlight unfurled across the galaxies.

Would you be willing to teach me about your starspark?

I would very much like to feel it too.

And the wildling and her current human sat together in the box quietly then. The pink being remained just outside, waiting patiently. He had nowhere else he needed to go.

After awhile, the wildling sidled herself along the floor away from the far wall and edged closer to the human until they were next to each other.

The wildling crept her fingers out towards the human’s hand which was gently resting on the floor next to her leg.

Hesitantly, the wildling touched the human’s hand with her own fingers and then the two hands came together, fingers wrapping around each other.

And the wildling and the human both felt the warmth of starlight glow inside them in a new way for the first time in aeons.

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(from the forthcoming "Origins" by Melanie Gillespie

writing and artwork © 2021 Melanie Gillespie, all rights reserved)