Remember when teachers marked our papers with golden stars – small symbols of joy for a job well done? As a child, I felt a spark of delight each time I received one. Those golden stars carried a special message for me — joy, freedom, and expansion.
My family even called me, “Star” – not for shining accomplishments, but for my constant demands for space. Crammed into long car rides with somebody’s knee or elbow pushed up next to me like a human sandwich, I’d protest, “Don’t touch me! Get your own space!” It became a running joke – my siblings would tease, “Don’t touch her — she’s a Star!”
In their own way, perhaps they were right.
Years later I began to understand how deeply the star speaks across cultures. Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man — inscribed in both circle and square — 
symbolizes the harmony of human proportions with geometry, and the nature of the cosmos. Yet all I could see was the five-pointed star within it. That image whispered: we are stars – luminous expressions of light. It awakened my spirituality and my sense of origin, a belonging to something vast and divine.
One day on a camping trip, arms aching beneath the weight of heavy firewood, totally exasperated, I dropped the wood. 
When I looked up, I was eye level with a Star carved into a trunk of a tree. “Lighten the load,” I heard that star say. Its message was received in an instant. Lighten what you carry, and your inner light will rise.
Stars have long been used as navigational tools – lights of hope and direction. I resonate deeply with that idea, discovering through meditation that a star resides at the center of my heart and within every cell of my body. This realization alone was a powerful teaching. For years I had been told to “lighten up,” but the truer message for me was “brighten up.” Be the commander of your own Starship — your own light. I hold the power to increase or dim my radiance. The Star reminds me to take responsibility for my energy. For bright light brings clarity, dim light clouds perception.
Just like the message carved in the tree, release the weight – physical, emotional, or metaphysical. When the burden falls away, lightness returns. And with lightness comes expansion, freedom… the dawn of a new day.
I’ve spent countless nights sleeping beneath the stars. The endless night sky fills me with peace and wonder. It recalibrates me, restoring balance and harmony in my energy body. The Star reminds me that I belong to the infinite – to the great web of light connecting all realms, ancestors, and the mystery beyond self.
In my spiritual practice, the Heart and Star symbols are companions. Deep within my heart resides my starlight — my radiant core. The Rune Sowelu, symbolizing wholeness, strength, and spiritual illumination, carries a prayer that aligns with this truth.
I invite you to attune to your own starlight – seated in your heart’s center. Connect to our greatest star, the Sun, and recite this sacred invocation – a version of the Gayatri Mantra:
“You who are the source of all power,
whose rays illuminate the world,
illuminate also my heart,
so that it too may do Your work.”
Then — simply be willing to receive divine guidance. Your light knows the way through any challenge.
In honor of you, Star – my shining light. And so it is.