“The stars have seen it all, again and again and again. They just observe, they don't comment, but their light continues to shine on you.” – Jennifer Mills
I want to take a moment of vulnerable truth and honesty. While I started observing the sky out of a sense of childhood whimsy and wonder, my profound appreciation of the stars came from the depths of sorrow.
The first time I cried to the stars I was 16. I was walking down the streets of Terrace, lost in the shadow of my own soul. I was walking to my part-time foster parents' house. Her name was Sharon, and we shared a birthday. I started living with her for half the week because my situation at home was unbearably toxic, and I had an unfortunate obsession with contemplating my own mortality.
It was during a void-fuelled despair spiral, with tears streaming down my face, that I looked up into the sky and saw a brilliant cosmic display, starlight scintillating within my teary eyes. These stars, immeasurably ancient and distant, shimmered as a light in this darkest of times. The stars looked otherworldly through my heartbroken refraction. I wandered alone at night in the cold so I could feel invisible, yet for some reason, beneath these mysterious motes of light, I felt seen.
Perhaps it was that old cheesy Facebook post that reminded us that “we are made of stardust,” for iron, the element that carries oxygen in our blood and sustains life in our systems, truly is only forged in the hearts of exploding stars. Or perhaps it was because, despite the darkness I felt consumed by, a part of me wanted to be light.
That starry night didn't fill me with cosmic enlightenment. I did not become instantly transformed or illuminated by any profound truth. I did, however, feel a spark of love beat in my heart, and that was enough. It allowed a flicker of hope to become an ember in my spirit. Is there anything more precious in the middle of winter than hope?
I find myself crying beneath the night sky again. I'm not sure I ever stopped. The moon guided me through so many heartbroken nights in my late teens and early twenties. I had left my family of origin and fought my way to emancipation, trying my best to pick myself up from the shattering of my world. Whenever I felt so utterly alone in my exile in the city, the moon's light would remind me that a million other souls were staring up in wonder and sorrow.
Sometimes I would cry tears of joy. I treasure those times. On the darkest of nights, in the most remote places with nary a settlement nearby, the sky will burn with the light of 10,000 stars. You can feel the prismatic tapestry, its rainbow hues scintillating in the frosty air, and for a moment, you taste infinity on your tongue. Oh, to be lost in a fragment of Heaven within the cradle of Earth.
Indulge my melodrama, please, for I have been opened up once more. A chasm of anguish has ruptured within me and I have been excavated. The tsunami came, the ceremony of grief is still in process, and I am half-death. I am forever changed (eternity-bound).
My mum passed away. She died. Liver cancer, lung lesions. My mum had been sick all of my life, so I have wept for her death since I understood what mortality might mean. I still weep, despite all the preparation. I still bleed, despite trying to tend the wounds all these years.
I will not expect you to understand the complex, tangled relationship that a foster kid has with their birth family; the layers and decades of trauma, the attempts to heal and forgive over and over, the same heart-rupture over and over, the abandonment, the exile, no home to go back to, being demonized for speaking truth, and the grief that comes with not being enough for your parents to love you. I've witnessed this pattern in many other friends who had similar fates, and there is comfort in shared experiences. So, if you resonate, trust me, it somehow gets better, but it sure takes work and strength.
In my adult life, I tried so hard to heal my relationship with my mum. I studied our Ukrainian culture and asked her to share as much as she could with me, recipes and nicknames and stories extricated from the violence of her own upbringing. I helped my mum write a book and tell her story. I became her counsellor with a standing appointment at 7 p.m. on Sunday; I would listen to her woes and then go cry by a body of water when the call was done.
We will never know a time without weeping. Sorrow originates from love, and I endeavour to love the beings of this plane as well as the skies above. I will love the constellations that rise in the east this autumn. I will love Sirius-Isis, goddess-jewel of the sky, and her rainbow light that shines down on us. I love even the little motes of light that hover in the sky without a grand name or story assigned.
I will love my mum. I will cry for her child-heart that was so golden at its core.
“Oh mother of mine,
your spirit has left this Earthly plane
they say you went to Heaven,
but when I look at the stars at night
I don't see you there,
perhaps I haven't looked close enough
or that shooting star really was you.
All I know is that you're gone.
I hold you in my memories
and speak soft stories about you.
I honour the matriline, the river of Oriava
flowed through your blood.
it is in our Borshch and Pampushky,
the soup and bread of our people
and it is in my tears that I shed beneath this moonlit-sky.
forgive my rage, my aching heart burns at injustice.
forgive my vanity, as I paint starlight tears upon my face.
I will wish upon a star of forgiveness,
for my heart and yours
may you finally know peace in your spiritual paradise.”
I will return with constellation stories and celestial insights next month. In the meantime, may you look up at the sky and ponder that which is reflected within your own hearts.
Yours in sorrow,
Vera Artemisia Oriava