In a sense, you are the star.

While we were passing through NYC during our whirlwind visit to the States, I was so grateful to come across a magical and moving little book,?The Universe is a Green Dragon , at a quaint bookshop in Brooklyn.?

Author Brian Swimme employs the Socratic dialogue form to guide readers through a breathtaking account of the Cosmos’ unfolding and of humankind’s inextricable relatedness with the very fabric of the universe. He elegantly translates the mind-bending insights of astrophysics and quantum mechanics into a beautifully sacred creation story that our hearts too can hear.?

Swimme reminds us that each one of our bodies carries within its matter and its form the recorded story of eons and eons of creativity- from the elemental atoms forged within supernovae to the complex structures of our eyes shaped by the lives of countless ancestors- we are walking, talking repositories of the Universe’s greatest hits. all of those wins are woven beautifully together in us that we might enable the novel ability of awareness to the whole.

“We are the self-reflexion of the universe. The universe is aware of itself through self- reflexive mind, which unfurls in the human. We allow the universe to know and feel itself. The creative work of the supernovas existed for billions of years without self-reflexive awareness. That star could not, by itself, become aware of its own beauty or sacrifice. But the star can, through us, reflect back on itself. In a sense, you are the star. Look at your hand – do you claim it as your own? Every element was forged in temperatures a million times hotter than molten rock, each atom fashioned in the blazing heat of the star. Your eyes, your brain, your bones, all of you is composed of the star’s creations. You are that star, brought into a form of life that enables life to reflect on itself. So, yes: the star does know of its great work, of its surrender to allurement, of its stupendous contribution to life, but only through its further articulation – you.”?

Far from feeling isolated and alone in this world, we can instead choose to see that we are within the loving embrace of our vast and myriad family unit.

“It was out of the dynamic of cosmic celebration that we were created in the first place. We are to become celebration and generosity, burst into self-awareness. What is the human? The human is a space, an opening, where the universe celebrates its existence.”??

There is so much more to this book that I felt the urge to highlight about half of every page. I highly recommend you pick up a copy of your own, but?here you will find an excellent collection of excerpts ?that will whet your appetite until yours arrives in the mail.

This is an excerpt from the latest edition of my newsletter, Wow Thanks Yay No. 18. If you enjoyed this you can get more insights like this in your inbox every three weeks or so by subscribing here .