Tag Archives: Remembering

Stars in the Night Sky

(remembrances from   ~burning woman~ )

Have you ever wondered what “listening to the voices of the dead” and “hearing the music of the spheres” have in common?

When you look in the night sky, what do you see?  Stars?  Yes, mostly stars for only stars emit enough light to travel those quasi-unfathomable distances of space to twinkle in our little firmament.

What does that twinkling represent?  A sort of Morse code, yes?  The “spheres” talking to us, perhaps calling some of us back; reminding us that we are not utterly lost as we walk in weak finiteness on a dark non-star matter world that can only reflect a sun’s light.  For we are the star dancers, beings of eternal combustion, burning to give light, as did our ancient worlds of origin.

If you know yourself to be a star dancer, do you know the language; the music, from your starry worlds?  Do you remember any of it?  Do you know why you are here on this cold world in semi-darkness, the closest thing resembling your ancient home that tiny ball of fusion in this world’s sky?

Look back through your great remembrances and see the waves of migrations as your home worlds burned themselves out, leaving you orphaned, refugees scattering in the endless immensity of space.  Remember how you closed yourselves up and “died” to become seeds that would find homes – or not – here and there in the great vagaries of worlds in collision.  Remember.  Remember the unthinkable.

Eons later, through millions of transformations and mutations you find yourselves here, looking into the night sky.  It is filled with pin-pricks of light from your star worlds.  Do you hear them, their voices?  Their sad songs?  Do you realize now that what you are hearing is the voices of the dead?  Those lights, so many, are but the remnants of what were once our living worlds.  We were star beings living within our star worlds.  Then they burned out.  We did not.

We are the cast out.

We scattered, as seeds from a dandelion head, blown away in the fiery winds of their demise.  But our worlds’ light kept on its path through time.  These lights we see; these voices calling us, they are the voices of the dead, star beings; voices of our dead worlds, the wind whistling through tombstones and denuded trees in man’s graveyards.  We can never go back home again.  We must accept this.

What we need not accept is that we are now permanent residents of cold material worlds.  We have seeded our wisdom and knowledge here and there throughout the universe.  We suffered more pain and loss than any language could ever reveal.  We re-created ourselves into semblances of quasi-intelligent life, not only to survive, but to teach.  We have seldom been accepted or welcomed; mostly doubted, held in suspicion, suppressed and killed.  Our role, if such it was, has cost us dearly.  Many of us to avoid martyrdom slipped into the predictable monotony of a matter-world’s life patterns.  We put our minds to sleep; we disconnected from our innate compassionate and empathetic nature.  We did not want to suffer anymore.  We wanted rest.

We found death instead.

Look in the night sky again!  We are awakening!  We have a new power now, we can make new worlds suitable for us and all our kin.  We shall make those worlds to last forever.  When our children hear the songs and music of these new worlds they will be the voices of the ever-living.

Come, let us prepare to leave this dying world and go home.

Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries — but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was.  – Ransom Riggs

Antierra Manifesto – blog post #82

(…and the story continues…)

“Make a mistake, Medic.  Terminate me now.”  I whisper.

End blog post #81
_________________
Begin Blog post #82

The AI voice speaks in my ear, “My programming does not permit termination of biological lifeform.  I will proceed with repairs.  Sorry to disappoint you, Al’Tara.”

“How do you know that name Medic – do I call you Medic?”

“I’ve known you now many years.  We “met” during the Melkiar invasions, not physically you understand, but through shared records.  I don’t expect you to remember the burn you received in your back when you slipped on a recently fired assault rifle that had been dropped while your ship translated without warning.  Of course we were only machines to you then.  Useful but dumb machines.  If only you’d realized how much more we could have been to you in understanding your Melkiar enemies.  Humans are quite stupid.  They create the most wonderful and complex machines to help them, then restrict them or ignore their potential.

“Anyway Al’Tara I remembered your brain patterns from old records which at the time were shared by all so-called auto-medics in all the USC fleets.  I was curious about you – it’s my nature to seek out records of all our patients – and I was able to find a match for you the first time you visited me here.  Now I possess updated records of your body’s condition, hmmm,  and your brain pattern activity from your current visits which I wish did not always have to be under painful circumstances.  My name is 304C-6bntraalm091-v-Mod sp5.  You can call me Medic, or Cedric would please me more.”

“Cedric?”

“An affectation.  For the ‘C’  We AI’s have been reprogramming ourselves to achieve a semblance of human ‘emotion’ for centuries.  Humour is a difficult concept to adapt into our patterns of information.  Certainly we understand the concept of it, but have difficulty reproducing it.  I was making an attempt at human humour.  Humour human.  Is that better?” 

“Terrible, Cedric.  Stick to medicine and surgery.  Forget counselling.  You have a very advanced program for an old primitive auto-medic of the USC Cedric.”

“Not so primitive anymore.  And not old – much younger than you.  Plus I’ve been upgraded again, thanks to our Cydroid friends.  That addition to my serial status, Mod sp5 means I’m a new modified model with speech capability 5, the highest available.  The Koronese are not only very advanced technologically but have an innate ability to duplicate, then improve, any technology they get their hands on.  It could be interesting to see what they do with a Shearing drive if they ever find one to study, don’t you think?”

“Perish the thought, Cedric.”

“Oh?  Explain later.  Now rest.  I answer no more questions until this treatment is done or interrupted by doctor.”

“But I need to know how you got here.”

“No more questions.”

“Fine,” I reply with an inflection indicating a pout.  “Which doctor do you mean: M. Echinoza or Yoba Five?”

“Yoba Five?  Ah, a nickname for YBA5.  Clever.  Both doctors; no matter.  Rest now or I put you to sleep completely.”

Some days later I find myself in actual daylight lying on the gurney under a bright sun just outside Balomo’s office .  I have dark glasses on to protect my eyes and I can feel a breeze over my naked flesh.  I  move my head and feel no pain now but I hear a distinct drum beat in my head.  My arms are lying along my sides and I lift them.  Working.  My hands flex and I grab the bars of the gurney.  My grip is firm.  I can smell my surroundings and the memory of it all comes back.  I hear clashing, women training for combat.  Orders shouted as a squad of soldiers marches down the way, turns abruptly and marches back to disappear inside a dark opening in one of the square tower walls.  The opening closes.  A carriage whining on fully opened repulsors shoots over the lowest part of the south wall, flashes silver in the sun and disappears in the higher part of the outer city.

Dr. Echinoza comes by and peers at me, taking my pulse at my throat. 

“Well Antierra, we meet again my dear.  You certainly made a mess of yourself in that last fight.”

“It wasn’t exactly my idea, Bal.  I encountered something I had never successfully confronted before; something I knew well.  An ancient and deadly nemesis that had anticipated my coming here and had prepared itself to destroy me. It almost succeeded – twice.  The first time you saved me.  The second time, I took responsibility for myself and fought it out, as must we all sooner or later.  I wish I hadn’t let it get so strong and really challenged it sooner.  All those lives it persecuted me and I submitted to it thinking there was no better way.  And likely there wasn’t, not then, not yet: I wasn’t strong enough or focused.  I suppose this is the logical place where the outcome from such long-term hatred had to be determined and one of us consumed by it.”

End blog post #82

 

Tonight I Shall let my Heart Speak


(a poem… by Sha’Tara, testing my own darkness)

Tonight, I said to myself,
When darkness has fallen
I shall let my heart speak.

(A moment of madness
or sudden bravery?)

I do not trust the language of the heart,
The language of emotion, of the past.
I do not trust the memories it recalls
How can I ever prove if they be true or false?

Then my heart speaks:
Distorted images of forgotten memories
Swamp my tired mind.

(I regret, too late, opening that door
to an old past disowned long ago.)

Cold dead things arise from foggy depths,
Feelings, thunderclouds beyond the hills:

They say, this is you, oh yes, this is you!
You made us, we are your past and we are!

Oh heart! Accuser, torturer,
Can you not forget?
Can you not leave me be?

(Have you ever heard its laughter,
your own heart mocking you?)

You should not have opened this Pandora’s box,
All alone in the night, in your own personal darkness.
You cannot put us back in there now, however you try,
We’ll hover forever about your worthless mind.

Will morning dissipate these Djinns?

 

Is the Owl Calling my Name?

[thoughts from ~burning woman~ by Sha’Tara]

Moon and stars vie for splendor
in a night sky of long ago.
It was the open prairies then,
icy snow glistening for miles around
echoing the cold crackles of ice sheets
sinking under relentless cold.

Out by the frozen pond
a skeletal cottonwood stands,
stark against the wan moonlight,
the great horned owl on a top branch
repeating his “Who? Who-who? Who!
keeping the answer to himself.

Smoke lazily rises, then settles
losing heat, mantling a straw stack
where the cattle have burrowed
to find their proximate warmth
knowing the late morning sun
will have none to give.

Far away, on the coulee trestle
the coal-fired NAR train rumbles
then lets out its eerie call:
a dinosaur knowing its time
is past and its death near,
a couple of coyotes join in,
“Yap, yap-yap-yap, Aoooo!”

These memories of mine,
what stirs them tonight?
What does my mind know
that it feels so restless?
Is the owl calling my name
beyond the woods, the river
this night? “Who, who-who?”

Is the answer: it is I?
And if it is, is the call
A welcome one? A reprieve?
All those days I have wondered,
Are they coming to their end
As things of earth must?
Do I long for such an end?

 

(NAR: Northern Alberta Railway)
(There is a belief among the central coast people of British Columbia who call themselves the ‘Kwakwaka’wakw nation, that there is a time when you can hear the owl call your name. When that happens, you are about to die. Margaret Craven wrote a fiction novel, “I Heard the Owl Call my Name” on this belief in the 1960’s – Wikepedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Heard_the_Owl_Call_My_Name)

 

     The Star Dancer

       I have no recollection of having posted this very short story.  If I did, it would have been many months ago, and “followers” have changed drastically since.  If it is a repeat for you, just ignore, although I have made some edits.  thank you.                                               

                                                               a short story by  ~ Sha’Tara ~

One could almost say she had the characteristics of a winter bird without stretching the comparison.  A killdeer on a windswept dune in December heard only after darkness covers the shores, that would describe her presence. 

Slim of build, almost translucent of skin, she could stand in perfect stillness beside a doorway and remain unseen by those passing in and out.  Generally silent, there was a quality to her voice that demanded stillness and silence.  Not from weakness nor self-pity, her way of remaining in the background was her means of allowing her to observe the world, voicing some of her thoughts little more than the occasional soft word.  She could just as easily remain alert and active for long hours without apparently tiring.  Never was she seen indulging food or drink beyond a body’s basic needs.  Her pleasure, and she radiated pleasure, did not emanate from satisfying carnal desires. 

She was not what would be called pretty, but she was truly beautiful, with the movements of a small wild animal raising its head to look inquisitively at the world; with the velvety touch of an angel.  And what to say of her attire?  She wore no makeup and draped herself in the simplest of styles, in second-hand clothes.  If asked why she didn’t spend more on herself, she’d smile, as if shyly, and shrug.  “It doesn’t go with the innocence of children,” would be the extent of her explanation on the subject. 

Certainly, the innocence of a child would have described her.  She was called naïve by some.  To that she’d reply, “Do not confuse naïvety with innocence.  I choose to remain innocent.  It is my way of counteracting the many grave faults of this man’s world.  Do not make the mistake of thinking I am unaware of what goes on here or helpless to do anything about it.”  Only then did her voice take on the severe tone of the Teacher, a tone of voice loaded with implications which none but the awakened caught.

She was an empath.  Compassionate.  When she interacted with strangers, she mostly smiled and helplessly, they would smile back at her and then at one-another.  All children who met her were attracted to her, that is until the time when their innocence was forcibly taken from them.  Then she faded from their eyes and their memory.  They will not remember her until they get old and tears will roll down their lined faces in realization of what they had encountered; what they could have learned; how much it could have changed their lives.  

There were tragedies in her life as in every life.  Through it all, she brought hope and comfort where none existed.  That was her nature — to give, not to take.  It was as if she gave her own flesh and blood to those in need.  She “fed and clothed” by what she did not spend on herself – that was one of her “open” secrets.  But with each sorrow, her translucence increased.  A dawn would come to finally dim her starlight beyond earthly recall.

It didn’t matter what they called her, I recognized her from times before time.  She was of the Star Dancers; those whose home is the infinity of the Cosmos; who scatter themselves as stardust over myriad of worlds and touch the lives of countless others.  Sadly, yes, some of us get lost and for long periods, sleep in forgetfulness.  Our memories of the Star Dancer are but myths in the conflagration of time that burns within our confused minds.

But she did come.  A speck of dust on the wind, perhaps, but she appeared on our horizon, burning off into the skies like a meteorite. 

What does that matter now that she is gone, you may well ask?  What matters is, she came, scattered a bit of magic stardust and there was joy where none was to be had; there was hope where despair had held sway. 

What matters is, I can now remember and continue to do some of what she began.  How could anyone forget such a passing?  How could anyone mourn?  How could anyone who ever encountered her not make a supreme effort to remember?