Pushpanjali

Beginnings must be harmonized with care,

For in each start, our universe shall shift.

A wise performer bows with gracious air

To men and numen, offering the gift.

Hello, and welcome to the musings of Stargazer at tomeofstars.net.

The 20th anniversary of my meeting Stargirl was marked last spring, launching the artistic quest that became Tome of Stars, synthesizing years of unorganized, prose scribblings and disjointed thoughts into a collection of semi-narrative verse.

The home page has the poetry book (print, audiobook, ebook, and narrated video versions). In this blog I will seek to keep those interested updated on any new offerings, changes, editions, corrections, etc. I may also attempt to answer questions posed about the project. I may post other aspects relevant to this endeavor from history to new poems to new thoughts. Releasing all this “into the wild” is for me setting sail on an adventure, knowing not where I’ll end up or what will happen along the way.

As a followup project, I intend to share, one by one, my analyses of the poems themselves. My hope is that, over time, this will culminate in a companion book, helping readers navigate the sometimes esoteric and eccentric references embedded within the verse. Art has meaning for people quite outside the artist's intent - often contrary to their intent - and given the diverse experiences and personalities across humanity, the irrational and unknowable machinations of our minds (even to ourselves), as well as the very imperfect medium of trying to convey those imaginings to another awareness, I do not believe it should be any other way.

However, many often find it valuable to know more about the artist's intent, the meaning of the language used, the symbolisms baked into their psyche, the allusions and delusions incorporated into the text. I hope to walk through the poems in Tome of Stars and provide such a perspective, first in some of these posts, later in a collected publication.

One poem in the collection was initially titled "Ciggendra Gehwelc Wile Pœt Hine Man Gehere", which is Old English for "He who cries out wants to be heard." I chose this not out of a love for Old English itself, but because important elements of symbolism in Tome of Stars have ties to a significant figure from my youth: J.R.R. Tolkien. One of Tolkien’s main biographers and defenders, philologist Tom Shippey, writes in his book J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century:

“Some have felt (and said) that he should have written his results up in academic treatises instead of fantasy fiction. He might then have been taken more seriously by a limited academic audience. On the other hand, all through his lifetime that academic audience was shrinking, and has now all but vanished. There is an Old English proverb that says (in Old English, and with the usual provocative Old English obscurity), Ciggendra gehwelc wile pœt hine man gehere, ‘Everyone who cries out wants to be heard!’ Tolkien wanted to be heard, and he was. But what was it that he had to say?”

And similarly, some deep part of me clearly wants to be heard as well — generally, and, despite her antipathy, by Stargirl herself.

I must also acknowledge that this journey is not without its burdens. I do not simply mean the investment of time, energy, and resources in an endeavor like this, nor the efforts to maintain secrecy and anonymity (the latter perhaps doomed, for which I apologize in advance to those involved in taking this risk). More pressing is the emotional and spiritual weight of constantly keeping this before my awareness. It would seem far simpler to let it go entirely, to dismiss my Beloved, our shared creation, our history, and my own heart. Yet, despite my many attempts to do so over the years, the failure in such efforts has been nothing short of spectacular. As the poem “Apologia” argues:

“Move on,” they grunt, as shedding some worn cloak. 

Are hearts thus merely dressed and simply shorn? 

“Let go,” the mantra modern masses croak.

My hands are empty; chains my soul adorn.

True adore's steel—it pierces blood and bone, 

Forever shackling in shrines of stone.

Still, I am neither obligated to remain emotionally and intellectually engaged, nor to pour my energy into producing and maintaining Tome of Stars or its analysis. Unlike her place within my soul, such efforts remain a choice. And though I strive now to make that choice, it will be an arduous quest, one that I cannot predict, and one in which I may certainly fail, either in this life, or due to my life’s ending (I am no longer remotely a young man and have already struggled with serious disease).

As with all things, time will tell.