When Stars are Born

When Stars are Born

Summer 2010

" One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."

Friedrich Nietzsche

You may have noticed that I like to use pictures from the cosmos - and that I like to change them!

The one I have included above is a Hubble Space Telescope image of a star cluster - an area where new stars are forming - named NGC 602 in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy that is a close neighbor to our Milky Way, at "only" about 200,000 light years away!

I chose this image because June marked nine months since I registered the Center for the Development of the Person as an LLC.

As one friend pointed out, June for me was "birthing time" - since nine months after conception is when humans are ready to leave the womb and begin to survive as individuals separate from the mother, it seems only appropriate to think in these terms for any kind of project.

For stars to be created in the universe, it obviously takes a whole different quantity of "time", but I have always loved the analogy that Antonio Mercurio found years ago between the creation of stars and the birth of individual human beings as "Persons - capable of freely and responsibly loving themselves, loving others and receiving love" (as well as the process that occurs within a group of Existential Personalistic Anthropology).

Stars form when a great cloud of unorganized matter begins to condense and heat up until it finally collapses, eventually reaching a point where the hydrogen atoms begin to fuse and the thermonuclear process begins. Radiation, heat and light are emitted - and we have a new star!



This is obviously a gross simplification of the process, but essentially we have 3 stages: condensation, collapse, and thermonuclear reaction.

If we apply this process to human reality, we can see that any kind of creation follows similar stages. There is the condensation phase, when an idea begins to take shape, or, in the case of a new life, when a male and a female are attracted to one another, and begin to become intimate. The collapse phase can be seen as the time when the male and female "matter" - the sperm and the ovum - actually begin traveling towards each other, each on a separate pathway, and having to undergo various trials (it is well known, for example, that millions of sperm actually undertake the journey in hopes of meeting the ovum, but only one of them will actually fuse with the ovum and all the rest will die; the ovum, too, has quite a tumultuous journey to reach the uterus, and once it is fertilized it has to find a welcoming spot on the uterine wall where it can implant and develop).

The phase of fusion can be identified in the time when both elements must lose something, and be "willing" to be transformed: the sperm loses its tail, and the ovum allows the sperm in. Once this happens, and the zygote is formed, an incredible growth process begins - not unlike a thermonuclear one if you think about it - and if the conditions are favorable enough, it will result in the creation of a complete and new human being approximately nine months later.

Transferred to other things, like groups or projects with a specific purpose, we can see that a similar process occurs. Have you ever started a new project of some sort, and recognized that at some point you begin to hit some major obstacles? You begin to have doubts about it, and if you are involved with other people in a group effort, someone might decide to leave, or conflict arises among the various members.

That's the collapse phase, when, after the initial excitement of condensation of ideas and energies around a new idea, things begin to really heat up!

On a personal level, when we are attempting to birth a new identity as Persons, the phase of collapse is often experienced as a time of great pain. It is a time when we realize we must make some big changes, and if we do so we may have to leave behind people, places and things that meant a lot to us up until that point. It is a time of death: death of parts of ourselves, of ways of thinking, acting and interacting with others.

It can be excrutiating - so much so that we can truly doubt whether or not it's worth it all. And sometimes we can realize that it's just not quite the right moment, or the conditions are not quite appropriate, to give birth to our new project or our new selves - and so we put a halt to the process.

If, instead, we decide to hang in there, and choose again and again to allow ourselves to experience the collapse and everything that means for us, at some point the thermonuclear process begins .... and .... a star is born! New energy is found, we begin to "shine" with a new light, or our project begins to unfold and become more and more visible to others.

This is obviously something that is not always easy to see in ourselves, but have you ever noticed how, after a grueling collapse and re-birthing process, others seem to see your light? You might still be feeling the effects of the pain you have gone through, but others can already see something new, something brighter .... it may take a while for you to realize it, but believe it or not a star has been born, a new sense of self, a new purpose, a new energy to move forward. And when that happens, our new warmth and energy begin to have an effect on others as well, and on the environment around us.

It is a never-ending process, and never completely painless, but once we can begin to understand it and embrace it, when we again have to face a major change we can at least be prepared, and we also have much greater faith and hope that the new life that will emerge will be something greater than before.

It is amazing to me to realize that one year ago at this time I hadn't even begun to think about starting my own Center. It was a vague, nebulous thought somewhere on the periphery of my consciousness. Yes, it had been a "dream" I had been coveting in my heart of hearts for many years - I believe the first time I announced to my Italian teachers, mentors and friends that one day I would open a Center affiliated to the Sophia University of Rome in the United States was sometime in the mid 1990's - but in June 2009 it still seemed light years away.

In the months after my decision to resign from my full-time counseling position at The Women's Center and step back into my identity as a self-employed private practitioner (something I had done in Italy for a number of years, but not yet in the USA), the nebula of my desire for my own Center of Existential Personalistic Anthropology underwent an incredible condensation, and I found myself thinking about it more and more. As my thoughts began to come into greater focus, greatly nurtured by my work translating Antonio Mercurio's books into English, the idea to found my LLC and to begin condensing all my various activities around that one central "identity" became clearer. It was "conceived" on September 9, 2009.

I will confess that I experienced various phases of "collapse" during these last months. I had to undergo many smaller, but nonetheless challenging, "deaths" - the death of my tendency towards perfectionism, the death of many of my expectations regarding how things would unfold, the death of my need for absolute predicatibily and so-called "stability", to name just a few - and more than once I wondered if I was doing the right thing.

But every time I was just about to walk away from it all, and move back towards something that seemed more manageable, I always received some little impulse, some invitation, some type of encouragement from the outside that helped me remember why I was doing all of this, and feel that I was, indeed, supported by Life throughout it all.

And here we are today, just past the nine month mark, and I must say that while there is no question that I am dealing with a newborn, with all that entails - sleepless nights, a flurry of continual activity and things to be done, the anxiety of the new parent who wants their child to be healthy and happy and is always wondering if they are doing things right (and this is also why it has taken me quite a bit longer to get this newsletter out than I expected!) - it is wonderful to see this new "life" emerging.

The endless voyage towards our True Selves - our inner star and guidance - is one that requires continuous effort, but also gives us the reward of seeing truly new life spring forward. It is a creative process, and whereas the pain experienced during the times of collapse is frightening and often overwhelming, it is ever more clear to me that it is well worth the joy that follows: the joy that arises when we have overcome seemingly unsurmountable hurdles, and have found deeper truth, beauty, love and freedom within ourselves.

It has been a wonderful journey, and it has been amazing to experience the whole process. It is certainly not over, but I do know that it is important to stop, at times, and look at what we have accomplished to get to a certain point, and celebrate every little step forward. This is what can most help us continue to grow, because there is no question that we must also make a continual effort to contain our "inner saboteur", which lurks in the corners and is always ready to point out what is not working and try to convince us we are unable, or unworthy, or any other number of negative thoughts.

I want to express my deep gratitude to all of you who have shared in the journey with me so far - my clients, my friends and family in both the USA and Italy, and perhaps most especially, my fiance' Jim, who has lovingly, tenaciously and generously stood beside me through it all, and has often shared his strength with me when mine was faltering.

Now that I write these words, I realize that while this little star is being born, which is the entity of my Center for the Development of the Person LLC, I can see that indeed I am within a star cluster, of many stars being born all at the same time. I have had the great opportunity to witness many "births" this year, those in the lives of clients, of my young-adult children, of projects with friends and colleagues ... the list is actually quite long!

What a beautiful sight!

My hope is that by sharing these ideas, those of you who read me can look at your own processes, and if you are going through the pangs of the death/collapse phase, you can find some hope, and also some strength to face the more difficult parts of the journey. Re-birth is right around the corner! And there is no question that we all need to be connected to others when we decide to be born anew: when we become part of a star cluster, the energies are multiplied, the voyage is much more interesting, and the light emitted into the universe is much greater than the sum of the single parts.