A Shared Hope
Guest Post by Nya Abernathy
GUEST POST WITH WRITER & EDUCATOR, NYA ABERNATHY
A Shared Hope
There’s a bright and beautiful community of writers bringing light into this dark world with at the magic of words. I would love to share some of these voices. And always, please feel free to share voices that you are leaning into—also, share your own voice. Do you have a newsletter? Are a creator on Substack? I want to support you too. Writing can be a lonely journey. But it need not be so very lonely. There are others. I have found it to be a beautiful thing to have “pen-pal” friendships to bolster my hope for my own work and whom I can encourage in return.
This week, I’d like to share the luminous newsletter Of Earth & Stars. Nya Abernathy has filled this space with an ever unfurling cosmic hope. Recently, she invited to take part in a very otherworldly conversation about “the wonder and awe of ancient luminosity.” If you’d like to here that conversation, please subscribe to Of Earth & Stars to listen in.
But for now, Nya has graciously allowed me to share a portion her newsletter with you all today.
Get ready to become a cloud-dreamer and stargazer—introducing: Of Earth & Stars: Ancestral Light by Nya Abernathy…
GUEST POST: ANCESTRAL LIGHT
THE WONDER & AWE OF ANCIENT LUMINOSITY
By Nya Abernathy
Carole Boston Weatherford – When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom
"Humans may be a way the universe knows itself, but truly we are only a way. Honestly, I can't know myself without the cosmos or without you, The Stars."
—Nya Abernathy, A Letter to the Stars
One of my bedside space books (yes, I have more than one) is The Mysteries of the Universe by Will Gater. The pictures are utterly astounding and elicit awe all by themselves. But the learning brings even more joy to my nerdy heart.
This is the Spindle Galaxy:
It is jaw droppingly beautiful and exquisitely far. What we can see of the galaxy is a masterpiece of ancient light. The light of that galaxy has taken 44 million years to get to our blue dot in the cosmos. You are literally looking into the past when you look up.
The light from our star, the one we call Sun, it is 8 minutes old by the time it reaches us. Even the sunshine on your face is from the past.
If you don't know Mahalia Jackson, listen to her sing one of the most recognizable gospel songs "How I Got Over". The line, "You know my soul look back and wonder how I made it over?" came to me as I pondered celestial wonder and light. She sings of struggle and hardness and difficulty and ultimately of being brought “over”. I believe she's singing from a place that knows the distance crossed going from who she's told she is by an unkind, wonder-less world to arrive at the knowing of her own awe and marvel in the eyes of Creator. This same Creator is sometimes called the Father of Lights. If the Creator who “brings us over” is the Father of the 44 million-year-old Spindle Galaxy light, then surely this Creator is also the Ancient of Days, having brought many over their journey. For some of us, it seems we had to travel 44 million heart-years on this Earth before the Light of Our Wonder reached us.
Now friends, I know you know the light of the Spindle Galaxy has its own purpose apart from us. We are not the the sole-center of the universe. And as the Spindle Galaxy is contentedly being its lovely luminous self, what can 44 million year old light mean to us?
What's the point of us not only seeing the light but also knowing some parts of the light's story, knowing that its source no longer exists as we see it?
If the ancestral light of a galaxy can exist - without diffusing, with a clarity of its source as brilliant and wonder-full as it was when the light left - for millions of years, can we imagine our own ancestral light?
If your ancestors are those who have come and gone before you that you are tethered to...sometimes willingly and sometimes not...what of their light?
What if the light of your ancestors is coming towards you through spacetime, awaiting you to behold their light with wonder and awe?
What of the ancestral light you are creating now, that light that will be seen coming from you out to the 7th generation and beyond?
What light will you leave in the Earth that will mix with time and space, inherited by the future ones who will be of your particular place?
For us, the Spindle Galaxy beckons us to hope in wonder of Ancestral Light. We can marvel, confess, and tell the story of "how we got over" the distances placed between our eyes and the light of our inherent wonder. In the midst, may we also marvel in the light we bring over and beyond our own selves and our now to those awaiting the beauty of our light.
If you’d like to continue this ancestral journey into the stars, subscribe to Of Earth & Of Stars. There are four more section —plus a bonus podcast episode—that paid subscribers receive:
Ritual of Connectedness
Cloud of (Cosmic) Witnesses
What The Light Has Seen - A Visualization (with Audio option)
What Has My Attention (A list with links of what media I’m digging)
PLUS: The accompanying podcast episode to this issue on Ancient Guides featuring Marcie Alvis-Walker!
Thank you so much Nya for the beauty of your words and this glorious and awe-inducing vision of hope.
To learn more about Nya’s work:
Visit her Website
Follow her on Instagram
Subscribe to her Newsletter
 | A guest post by
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So beautiful. Whenever I go into thoughts about the universe, I’m instantly overwhelmed and quieted. I like tangible things, so I just sit there in wonder instead of in a state of processing. The universe and the human body are the two things that keep me tied to a faith tradition. Calling it “God” and giving a name to the source behind all the things we can’t fathom is more comforting to me than the belief everything was thrown into motion at random. My faith is just a constant state of questions. And awe. Anytime someone tells me they have God and faith all figured out and are content in that bubble…I’m flabbergasted.
That was breathtaking.