We Are Stardust in Motion

One evening during my recent silent retreat, our small group hiked into the mountains. We donned our headlamps, wrapped ourselves in warm clothing, and followed our guide. With the sandy ground crunching under our boots, our guide pointed out interesting flora and rock formations. We crawled through narrow tunnels and paused under sprawling sandstone ampitheatres, appreciating San rock art that are thousands of years old.

As the sun set, far from cell towers and city lights, we lay on our backs beneath a blanket of stars, each of them a distant fire, burning across millennia. Under this glowing expanse, our guide spoke softly of the birth of stars. How gravity presses hydrogen atoms together until they ignite, birthing a new star. How, in death, some explode in supernovae, flinging carbon, oxygen, iron and other elements into the universe. How everything heavier than helium, everything in our bodies, was forged in those ancient stellar deaths. Suddenly, the sky didn’t feel like a distant and abstract ceiling. It felt like home.

I often meditate on death. I find that reflecting on my own mortality is a powerful way to ignite a fire within me to live, fully, in the moment. That night, being reminded about how we are all, fundamentally, stardust, my reflection on my mortality took on a whole new meaning. Death isn’t a disappearing act. It’s not "The End". It’s a return. The atoms that make my bones, my thoughts, my breath, are just visiting for a brief moment. One day, they’ll scatter and rejoin the grand orchestra. I will go back into the trees, into the wind, into starlight. A homecoming.

Buddhist thought often points to the impermanence of the self not as a nihilistic void, but as liberation. There is no single, unchanging “you” to be protected at all costs. There’s just awareness, arising and dissolving, like breath.

How often do we live as though we are exceptions to the rule of nature, rather than active participants in its unfolding? We often rebuild our identities, cell by cell, thought by thought, yet we still cling to the illusion of permanence, to the idea that things should be as they are, forever. If our bodies are constellations of borrowed atoms forged in ancient stellar cores, then isn’t everything a little more fluid, a little less fixed? We are not separate from the cosmos. We are its continuation.

What would it mean to live like stardust in motion? To stop trying to outpace or ignore our mortality, and instead shape a life that honours it?

For me, it means to show up fully to how my life unfolds. To choose words with care. To love fiercely, and let go gently. To make something of my brief time here. Not in the grandiose sense, but in the real sense. Presence. Kindness. Wonder.

So, dear reader, the next time you look up at the stars, remember: you’re looking at where you came from. And, perhaps, where you are going. Let that soften your fear. Let it expand your perspective. Let it invite you to live. Not forever, but fully, while you can.

Until next week,

Ric.