Vineeto to Henry: Yes, ‘star-dust’ reminds me more of birthday party glitter than how I would describe my experience of being here in this actual world. (link)
Claudiu: I quite like the star-dust imagery. We are all literally made up of matter, the same matter that constitutes the planets and the stars themselves. The Earth is understood to have formed from the very same matter that formed the Sun itself — gaseous swirls of matter (as seen in nebulae) condensing into varying forms of stars, small planets, gas giants, etc.
As such we are all literally made of star-dust, the very essence that constitutes our sun is also what constitutes our flesh and blood bodies and all that we imbibe to sustain life!
Perhaps this fuller explication helps to convey the appreciation I have for the term and its expressive potency! (link)
Hi Claudiu,
I have been pondering your “we are all literally made of star-dust” and was wondering why it doesn’t quite describe how I experience myself. Today I found the quote I had in mind and it helped me put my thoughts on this phrase in order –
Richard: The very earth beneath our feet is ‘our base’ … this planet grows human beings just as it grows the trees and the grasses and the flowers (although in the final analysis, of course, it is the universe itself which is ‘our base’ as it ‘grows’ the suns and planets … and I am putting ‘grows’ in scare quotes deliberately as it is an analogous term). (Richard, List B, No. 25g, 16 May 2001).
As such, physically I am ‘grown’ by the earth, and apperceptively I am “the perfection of the stillness of infinitude personified as a sensate and reflective human being” (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 07, 22 Feb 99).
Whereas I cannot honestly say that I am “star-dust” (as in “gaseous swirls of matter (as seen in nebulae) condensing into varying forms of stars, small planets, gas giants, etc”). In other words, I am the universe experiencing itself as a human being, I am not the universe per se, as in “gaseous swirls of matter”.
Whereas I have seen documentaries and read Richard’s description which has thrown considerable light upon questions as to the possible origin of life inside this very planet we are living on, and as such justify the expression that physically the earth ‘grows’ me.
Richard: … the discovery late last century of microbes known as archaea, in and around out-gassing deep-ocean vents where no photosynthesis whatsoever can take place, has thrown considerable light upon questions as to the possible origin of life itself inasmuch it might indeed be that both the microfauna/ microflora and the macrofauna/ macroflora living on this planet’s surface, and thus drawing their nourishment primarily from the sun’s radiant energy, originally stem from the subsurface life which sustains itself with the chemical energy resulting from an out-flowing of hydrocarbons (principally methane) formed deep within the planet under great pressure and heat reacting chemically with metal sulphides and thus dissociating carbon. (Richard, AF List, No. 110a, 25 May 2006).
Hence the expression that the planet grows human beings neither requires conjecture nor searching for the origin of flora, fauna and human beings in outer space.
Cheers Vineeto