Wonderdust

     In 1978, the American rock band, Kansas, told us in their song, “Dust in the Wind,” that “all we are is dust in the wind.” Those words, though humble, elegant, and poignant, could easily be interpreted to portend that life is meaningless and nothing we do matters because our lives are fleeting and “all we do crumbles to the ground. Though we refuse to see.”

     However, what if the dust we are made of is wonderdust? What if we are composed of brilliant particles of always and forever? This is what I believe and what I tried to convey in “Of Stardust and Seawater,” one the stories I wrote for The Fairytales of Lightfall Hollow.

     I wonder if perhaps, Kerry Livgren, the composer of “Dust in the Wind” had an inkling of the same notion when he also wrote “All my dreams pass before my eyes, a curiosity.” So he appears to admit he acknowledges his hopes, and the word “curiosity” could imply that, while he believes himself to be dust and all he does is dust too, his hopes and dreams remain, a wonder.

     If that is true, I would propose it is because like creates like. Although we may seem as insignificant and temporal as dust, we are the glorious stuff of the everlasting. Our dust is wonderdust, and everything we produce is of wonderdust too. While, as Mr. Livgren also informed us, we are as well “the same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea.”

     And what a wonder it is to be that same old song.

     That was my recurrent thought recently as I was wondering along the seashore during a recent visit to the Atlantic Ocean.

     Although the little woodland mountain valley of Lightfall Hollow is my main and most beloved home, ever since I can remember, I have also felt a deep emotional connection and sense of rootedness when I visit the ocean. This is probably at least partially because Lightfall Hollow got its start under an ocean. The Iapetus Ocean, which I refer to as the Appalachian Sea in my fairytales, covered this land 400-600 million years ago. It was a very different, much shallower ocean than the Atlantic, but it is the precursor to the Atlantic, named Iapetus for Greek mythology’s titan, deity of mortality, and father of Atlantis.

     Fossils of little sea creatures who once lived in the Iapetus Ocean hundreds of millions of years ago can still be found embedded in rocks on the hollow’s woodland floor and in its creek bed. I am gaga for such treasure-bearing stones, to the extent I prefer holding a fossil in my hand to wearing a diamond on my finger. I have even plastered “remembering rocks” to my kitchen walls, the way others, with perhaps better taste, cover their kitchen walls with ceramic tile, marble, granite, or some other, more obviously beautiful something.

     But the fossils, while not beautiful at first glance, fill me with wonder.

     As does the sea.

     When I look out at the ocean, I can feel I came from there, that the sea is Mother Earth’s womb and where all life on our planet began. So, of course, the sea too is my home. She is my first home, and, from time to time, I want and need to be with her.

     To watch the sun of a new day rise over the ocean is one of my favorite wonders. Some dawns on my recent visit to the Atlantic, I witnessed sun and sea move together as one, on separate lighted paths that grew from blazing red to fiery orange to gold to silver to pure, dazzling white. I felt like I was watching a marriage unfold.

     Then there was the night when lightning united sky and sea. The thunder of the heavens crashed and roared, and the waves of the ocean crashed and roared in return, sky and sea renewing their wedding vows.

     And the thrill of watching that obstinate, spirited surf. How the little ripples gather and proudly swell in waves of translucent, naïve green. Boldly, the waves climb and climb, but all too soon, they crest, curl into fetal position, and fall, exploding with a resounding bellow of defiance. Only to inevitably land on the shore no more than fluffy froth, bubbles of foam popping with wee hisses of indignation.

     But the water is undeterred. It slips back to its source. To gather, grow, build, be glorious for a moment, fall, and fizzle out upon the shore once again. The same old song.

      Just my opinion, fresh from my wondering at the Atlantic Ocean, but to be a drop of water borne by an endless sea, a speck of dust carried by the wind, and a note in the same old song is the most wonderful wonder of all.

     Thank you for reading “Wonderdust.” I hope you will return here in a couple of weeks to read my next post.