StarWalker leaves his body below and floats freely through the Universe. He unlocks secrets hidden in the stars, and gathers dreamlike messages full of colors, numbers, and mystic configurations. He drifts through puzzling dimensions and meets StarBeings along the way.
StarWalker travels on the astral plane, a celestial realm that guides our physical world. He dwells in his Light Energy Body until a small chirp awakens him back to normal space-time.
inspiration
Growing up in the ‘seventies, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Not a real astronaut with all the physics and physical training, but a space traveller. Mostly, I imagined returning to the Star Village where my sisters and I pretended we came from: the Pleiades constellation.
The Apollo missions and Space Race spawned space travel songs. Who even knew this was a genre?! David Bowie’s Starman and Space Oddity, Elton John’s Rocket Man, and Chris de Burgh’s A Spaceman Came Traveling, ignited my imagination and launched my “heroine’s quest” to reach distant worlds.
The 1970s August nights in Northern Ontario glittered with shooting stars, occasional Northern Lights, and star-clusters so close you could almost scoop a handful.
Then came Carlos Castenada and the art of lucid dreaming. Gary Wright’s Dreamweaver ruled my heart. Night after night, I strove to remain conscious while asleep, to see my hands—the way I ended up doing in the ‘eighties in one of Jaron Lanier’s early virtual realities at SIGGRAPH, the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group in Graphics. Astral planes gave way to fractal geometry and a new way to see pathological numbers.
“Realms beyond” now meant realms within.
Everywhere led to infinity. The future promised limitless horizons in outer space. Nuclear physics delved into untold mysteries of microcosmic dimensions. Psychedelics, Near-Death-Experiences, and Far-Eastern meditation imports led to expansive, transcendent consciousness.
the photoshoot
I can’t remember how Leo David Fernandez Martinez and I crossed paths. He was on his way somewhere, sleeping in his car. Someone intersected us somehow. A peephole of time opened into one of the most playful photo sessions ever.
In rare moments, I see the intricate workings of forces beyond comprehension. Feel the immense gifts of serving human beings and the Divine. I mean, look at this man! How lucky am I, “by accident,” to work with such beautiful, talented, memorable people?!
We found a secret field that opened to the sky in Louisville, Colorado. I brought a step-stool, blanket, and the mini-trampoline. For the costume, a pair of straw-colored harem pants and my most versatile “robe”—four yards of translucent white cotton to serve as an astral spacesuit. My studio is the outdoors, my lighting kit the sun and sky. The Colorado blue and scattered clouds in late afternoon set the tone. Leo David, on his way to a new life, danced, explored, leapt. His joy infused each movement with the anti-gravitational freedom only a StarWalker might know.
A scientist friend pointed out that NASA images, from the Hubble and Webb telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, are paid for by tax dollars, free to use with little constraint. I “become an astronaut” each time I venture into spacescapes from the Sombrero and Andromeda galaxies, star nurseries, and every sort of mind-blowing artwork painted by the hand of the Great One.
what i thought as i created
I had an out-of-body experience at age eleven, crossing the portal into the realm beyond life where “I” disappeared into a vast nothingness, yet all was known. Stepping beyond time and space felt so familiar, I wondered how I could have ever forgotten this truth while alive.
The fragile human body seems an inept container for the Self. After Earthrise, our global consciousness adjusted to dwelling on a tiny blue marble in the emptiness of the Universe. How small and insignificant we are!
As I edited the art, I felt myself calling to the protagonist, “Oh, StarWalker! Come find me. Take me with you tonight!
What a wonderful vision of the vast universe using your immense creative talents to look through the perspective of another earthling living amidst the stars.
You find opportunities that are mutually beneficial: for you and the person being photographed. Loved your phrase about stars being so close you can scoop them.