Stardust, My Mother

"Get going!', yells Mother from the other room. I know that I am due at the clinic in half an hour, and I have the car keys in my hand. But, I cannot get past the inertia caused by my journaling. I am writing about stardust and celestial bodies.

I am recording my most recent dream. In the dream, I am walking a wide gravelly path, along the edge of a cliff face. There are people speaking in the distance, but no one is near enough to me, to be seen. Yet, I distinctly feel that I am being called by someone or something, from along the uneven surface of the rockface, as I move forward.

I stop mid-stride and look for the source of my attraction. A few feet in front of me, I see a hollow space, under a bump in the ledge. I walk up to it and stop to peer into the hole. I know that this is what has been calling to me. As I creep closer to get a better look, I see a small puddle of rock dust, sparkling in the little bit of light that spills into the space. Suddenly, like a melody that starts, and you instantly know all of the words to the song, I understand. This little cache of bedazzled dust is the remnants of lives. Minerals from stars have passed through the life and time of organisms, big and small. From the beginning of Earth's time, these crystals are alive with the memories of these lives.

How do I know this, I wonder? I don't understand why I was called to look here and how do I know what this is? As I stand rooted on the trail, I am not sure of what to do with what I believe. I am made of this stardust. As young as I am, part of me is as old as the original minerals of this planet. Foreign and familiar, frightening and comforting, all at the same time. History as consciousness, and consciousness that transcends one organism.

I remember the old-timey photographs, that my mother had shown to me, of my great grandmother and grandfather, standing in front of an old farmhouse. My mother had told me the stories of the animals they raised, and the crops they grew. She talked about the water they used to grow the vegetables, and how they fertilized the soil they worked in. Where are all of those molecules now? My ancestors had found part of an old mastodon skeleton on the edge of their farm. What other animals and plants, had left their elements behind, to become part of my grandparents, my parents, and me?

How have the vestiges of these lives, wound up in the pile of dust I am looking at in the dream? How is this miniature galaxy of atoms summoning me, to notice it? I don’t touch it. I feel that this sacred pool of dust is not mine to interfere with. I am quietly awed.

I feel so small. Just one tiny collection of particles from a planet, and a universe that is so vast. Do my feelings and actions matter at all, or are they just the struggles of one more life form, destined to rejoin the sparkly pile? I am frozen to the spot, afraid to move until I understand.

I am shaken from my reverie when I realize that my mother is standing next to my desk, with her hands on her hips. Her face looks like a pictograph for “anger.” I resent the interruption. I cannot, now, remember what I was trying to discover. I slam the pen between the pages of my notebook.

“I’m going,” I growl, jangling the keys in front of me.

“What the heck are you doing?” my mother barks. “You’re going to be late!”

“I’m going to be on time,” I say, too loudly, as I jump up and head for the door. “I never told you this before Mother, but I am made up of stardust. I have all the time in the world!”