From Stardust to Stardust...

Busimanolotome Osceola riding "Osceola's Spear."

I was having another slow day at the Miccosukee Embassy while doing Sanctuary and found a Brain Pickings post by Maria Popova re John Muir, the "Father of the National Parks" and founder of the Sierra Club.  She centers on the epiphany he had on his famous thousand mile walk through the United States following the Civil War to the Gulf of Mexico,  that all is connected in the Universe. 

"This star, our own good earth, made many a successful journey around the heavens ere man was made, and whole kingdoms of creatures enjoyed existence and returned to dust ere man appeared to claim them. After human beings have also played their part in Creation’s plan, they too may disappear without any general burning or extraordinary commotion whatever."

That made me think of an even earlier phrase inspired by the Bible (Genesis 3:19) found in the Book of Common Prayer (1662): "... our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust..."
 
Now we know that science has shown we are all stardust and I get it, that there is a continuation, that Nature wastes nothing and the Universe is the primo recycling machine. But when I think of my father-in-law's passing, the founder of the New Seminole, I would have to argue that Busimanolotome Osceola's  death was a "general burning" and  did make an "extraordinary commotion" in the Universe.  Especially in the Everglades where we fought Uncle Sam's Army Rangers for Gaia and lost big time. 

​But at least we tried and I think the Universe took note, that it wasn't a complete waste of time and lives.