Welcome to the Hearth

Welcome to the Hearth

Friday, December 18, 2009

We Are Stardust...

Credit:Hubble Space Telescope NASA/ESA.




In her TED presentation, Jill Tarter, said:"We are the products of a billion year lineage of wandering stardust." This is no small thing to have accomplished so far! I think that God Spark within us is seeking, as, Rilke puts it:

"
God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going."

See, I think our value and gift to our world is to find our greatness and to be that to the best of our ability. This is why I have a problem with the underlying premise of the Girl effect, a video that the Nike Corporation, among other groups, trying to make a difference, is promoting. On the face of it, to improve a girl's life through education, I am all for that. But the conclusion, that then, a girl is valuable because her education will lead to a more productive contributor to the economy of her village and the world is where I have the problem. There is even a subtle anchoring of the idea that getting her a cow (cash-cow) to upgrade her worth, that to me, is even more disturbing.

Now, I belong to a community whose mission, in the 166 years we have been Catholic teaching sisters, has been to educate women. Our visionary foundress, Marie Rose Durocher, believe that if you educated women, you could change the world. She believed they had the most profound influence over men and children. We believe that the value of an educated woman is not to primarily shore up the economic system of the world but to use her confidence, intelligence, creativity, talent, passion, thirst for knowledge, love and faith to excel and to find new ways to improve her life, the life of her family, loved ones and community. She is of value because of the "Stardust Effect" that all humans have as we seek out ways to express
that God Spark. We came here first and foremost to embody the Divine, not be a cog in some one's money machine.

At a time when so much focus is on economics and the money game and how corrupted it has become, it should become crystal clear to us that we have all become slaves to money. The reason, ultimately, that we have the huge problem with human trafficking and slavery in this world is that we have all become slaves to keeping the money game going. It just seems acceptable to our prevailing paradigm that we are here to keep the money game afloat. It is a common thing in the public educational system in the U.S. to cut "the soft classes" like art and music if we are short on money. These classes are the very way that humans continue to stay in touch with their Stardust Effect. It is the very food of our souls. Maybe we do not value the Stardust Effect at all because it is priceless, free, abundant and no one can make a buck on it
, yet, it may be the very thing that saves us from our own extinction.

It seems like the changes that need to take place in our world, at the moment to solve the climate change crisis, end poverty and war, have adequate health care for all, end human trafficking and slavery, choose to see clean water, air, and earth as our sacred duty to insure, and thus to save and improve our world, our species is unwilling to make because of economics. We are slaves who have forgotten the Stardust Effect.

Actually, if the truth be known, the goodness in our species is there and the majority of us would move heaven and earth to bring this whole grand idea of life on planet earth back into balance, but we have to wake up to our power. We have to ask ourselves on a day to day basis, "how am I contributing to the illusion that money is the most important thing?" As a shop keeper, I refuse to commercialize Christmas. I put up Christmas Decorations December 1st. I don't follow the "marketing trends," instead I listen to my heart and create beauty and ideas that I love. They always speak to my customers.

Developing our creativity and wonder should be at the top of our curriculum list when we design schools to really bring the best out in our children. The world is falling apart before our very eyes in every major area: education, government, economy, medicine, religion, the list goes on, because it needs to. It's time we reclaimed our original blessing, and started remembering the words to that little song Joni Mitchell made famous in the 60's:
"We are stardust, we are golden and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden." It's time!

19 comments:

Suzi Smith said...

You convey this so well kathryn & I totally agree with you. since joining the blogging community I have seen that spark of goodness being fanned by so many... mainly (but not exclusively) women who seek to influence the world & those around them in their own precious way... keep spreading the stardust!

Miss Robyn said...

wonderful post Sr.K!
lots to ponder as usual..

Anonymous said...
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Ruth said...

Hello SR K, and thank you for visitng my blog. I totally agree with what you say about women. The older I get the more I feel that the true value of womanhood, that which makes us wild, strong and magical, is being undervalued by many people. That's why I always try to focus on the deep feminine in my writing and artwork.
PS I am a great fan of Rilke too!

Anonymous said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

Anonymous said...
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Searching For My Willoughby said...

I've missed reading your posts, but this one made up for it. All I can is AMEN! You have summed up exactly how I feel, with grace. Now to deeply ponder those questions.

Anonymous said...

I inclination not concur on it. I assume warm-hearted post. Especially the title attracted me to be familiar with the sound story.

Unknown said...

Thanks Kathryn for the reminder of who and whose we are. Your ponderings continue to uplift and inspire me. Loved hearing Joni Mitchell in my mind/soul again. Be well my sister.

Anonymous said...

Good fill someone in on and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you as your information.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful post, Sr. Kathryn. Just today I was looking over a pamphlet about money-free living and creating a less money-dependent city. How timely your words are for me.

Anonymous said...

Brim over I agree but I think the post should prepare more info then it has.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

nice article. I would love to follow you on twitter.

Anonymous said...

You have to express more your opinion to attract more readers, because just a video or plain text without any personal approach is not that valuable. But it is just form my point of view

Anonymous said...

It sounds like you're creating problems yourself by trying to solve this issue instead of looking at why their is a problem in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Hello. My wife and I bought our house about 6 months ago. It was a foreclosure and we were able to get a great deal on it. We also took advantage of the 8K tax credit so that definitely helped. We did an extensive remodeling job and now I want to refinance to cut the term to a 20 or 15 year loan. Does anyone know any good sites for mortgage information? Thanks!

Mike

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Barbara said...

Hello!

I love your star dust effect post. I wrote about how we are star dust and give some examples of how we can get 'back to the garden"

http://barbaramonahan.blogspot.com/2017/10/we-are-all-chosen.html