Poem: Star Rising Over Wide Fields
The imagination of humans while watching the night sky triggers many associations with the stars. Far away from cities and other human clusters, whose earthly lights take away the panoramic view of the night sky, the magic unveils.
From the paddy fields of the hinterland in China, the night sky is clear. One can see the Heavens — the Supreme Force that determines the destinies of humans, often inscribed in signs from the stars. The expectations from humans about their future paths and destinies are tied to their stars — after all, if somebody’s star is rising, it is a good omen, right?
If Heaven was the Master of time, then those who lived in the past — our ancestors are considered to be part of Heaven, considering that the ancestors of ancestors, eventually lead to the Supreme Ancestor — the primordial divine from the Heavens. The vault of stars represents the ancestors and deities, making up the Celestial Bureaucracy, and they appear in the night sky to look after us.
Our ancestors are our creators. While the Creator (Tian) is universal, in the act of creation itself, the creature is involved, say, in progeny, hence the creature, in some sense, is a creator. The act of creation ( or evolution) involves the alignment of the stars, the earthly phenomena, and the acts of human beings.
To conduct government by virtue may be compared to the North Star: it occupied its place, while the myriad stars revolved around it.— Confucius, Analects 2:1
If Heaven ‘Tian’ is the Supreme Being, the earthly supreme is ‘Di or Shangdi’ ( that includes all earthly things.) Now, comes our earthly interpretation of this title ‘Star Rising Over Wide Fields’.
Star Rising Over Wide Fields:
The Farmer is a creator, for he creates food for his consumption. But he is not alone, he has to look to the earth and the skies for the food to be created. The soil, the sunlight, the rains — all become co-creators, and therefore ancestors, who create the food for the creatures ( humans and other beings). The stars point the directions to ships that sail, and the weather to the farmer in the wide fields.
The wide fields are the vastness of creation, while the star is the heavenly progenitor that starts the process of creation. The farmer is the descendant of the star and is the creator as well.
Poem: Star Rising Over Wide Fields
Oh, Dear Rising Star!
Invisible and lost in the human cluster
Drowned in the earthly lights
Humans awake in the unearthly hourDarkness scatters in its true form
Far away from the human congregations
You appear in true delightCreatures in the heavenly realm
Far away into the recesses of the past
Ancestral overseeing my beingWe walk your path, looking up for signs
Premonition of our destinies
Lighthouses for our struggling shipsSigns from the Tian (Heavenly Ancestry)
Masters of the time gone by
The elements of the Earth (Di) followCreation culminates thus
The creature becomes the creator
Progenitor for the futureWide fields ready as wombs
Absorb the heavenly seeds
Sunshine and rains as catalystsA future blessed by Tian ( heavens)
Nurtured motherly by Di (Earth)
The farmer reaps the harvest.Strings of the Guqin vibrate
Hoping that you will listen
The ode to our ancestorsTheir oversight of the past
Presents a promising future
As the human (farmer) looks up to youOh, dear Rising Star!
~Ashok Subramanian © 2024
