Star Child

Star Child, written in a fairy tale genre similar to The Little Prince and The Alchemist is a book for young and mature adults. It explores in a simple and poetic way the challenges facing two “star children,” Terra and Marius, on their journey to learn about being human. Set in a faraway time and place, they confront the same problems of modern humans: fear, loneliness, the need to please, and the stigma of showing their true selves when they do not fit in with those around them. Betraying their own hearts, each gives up or misuses the very things that make them unique. On their magical journey to find themselves and each other, they encounter wise teachers in the creatures of the sea and earth, the trees of the forest, and the elders of their world. EXCERPTS EARTH She stood in the waving green meadow and took it all in: the stalks of grass moving in the curved palm of the wind; the gentle hum of a wayward bee easing first away, then closer to touch her; the amber of the sun’s bright globe painting her face and arms; the taste of lavender in the air slipping past her lips and melting on her tongue. And she felt such joy that every part of her being filled up, and being filled, welled over as tears. The star child had planted herself in this earth meadow seven winters earlier, the soul-seed of a dying star burning its path through a midnight sky. Only the sparrows and cottontails, fooled from their sleep by the brilliant light, witnessed the last hiss of steam and the fading glow of the crystal as it slipped beneath the silver snow carpet. The child tugged her feet from the grip of the moist earth. Her skin was translucent, like the pale roots of a plant. The blue lines of her veins decorated her wrists and arms and at her temple where her red hair began its twisting journey to her waist. Meadow flowers circled her head and trailed down each shoulder. Her garment was all shades of light, changing in the sun and shadows so that one moment it appeared torn from a sunset and in the next as rippling sea foam. SEA The dolphins circled the glowing crystal and followed until it came to rest upon the white sand of the ocean bottom. With their tails, they spun a seaweed cradle. They sang songs of cresting waves, the moonlit dance of foam, lullabies in the endless rhythm of the sea. They kept watch over their treasure, transfixed by its gentle rhythmic currents stroking their skin. The dolphins brought gifts of coral and scallops, pearls and tortoiseshell and sea-worn glass in pastel hues as they waited through the tidal seasons. A child grew there in the ocean bed, taking his colors from his watery womb, the brown of driftwood to his hair and the green of sea moss and luminous plankton to color his eyes. The coral and gray of beach rocks and shells burnished his skin. He wore an iridescent garment that shimmered like sea spray in the sun. A ring of shell and sea glass graced his neck...