Sarah, I love the title! I'm also remembering the creative collaboration you did with IKSRE "This Very Moment." Perhaps a hint for the title of your book was shared then? I love that Rebecca Elson was a poet and an astronomer. It makes sense.
I have been reading the poems of Andrea Gibson lately- their words have given me so much solace, especially the "Love Letter From the Afterlife" and other quotes I've come across such as: "If we never deny the inevitable end of the story, we will write it more beautiful while we're still alive" and "Who I am might not mean much then, in the moment right before I am about to become Everything."
Thank you for sharing the PDF of the article. I missed it when it came out. I look forward to taking my time to read it.
The past couple of days I have been listening to Joni Mitchell's song "California" and the first verse reminded me of you in Paris.
Sitting in a park in Paris, France
Reading the news and it sure looks bad
They won't give peace a chance
That was just a dream some of us had
Wishing you well in Greece as you complete your final edits. I love a full circle experience.
Kei x
P.S. Happy to contribute my thoughts (if they are of any help) re: the cover of your book.
Kei! Hello again! I’ve been MIA on these airwaves for quite some time now (I’ve been intentionally withdrawing from digital technologies to be more physically present with my children).
But your mention of Andrea Gibson’s work inspired me to reach out again… I’ve been revisiting/fully immersing myself in their work again since their recent death. I’ve found myself grieving their passing so much more than any other person I’ve never actually met in real life.
Andrea was (and still is) able to express something transcendental with their words. But it is their spoken-word delivery that really ‘gets’ (and breaks) me. There are many recordings on YouTube if you haven’t already watched them? Just before they died, they said to their partner Meg, and their friends…”I fucking loved my life”. I’ve been replaying this over and over in my head.
Andrea was only a few years older than me when they died (49), and my age (45) when diagnosed with cancer. As you (and so many of us here) know all too painfully, death can be our greatest teacher.
Another one of Andrea’s lines that keeps resonating in my mind is “let your heart break so your spirit doesn’t”. I feel this deeply, and their death is reminding me to grieve all the things I never allowed myself to throughout my life. I’m also feeling ‘anticipatory grief’ towards so many things…my elderly mother’s rapid decline towards her inevitable death, my children becoming (“grown ups”?) before my eyes, and of course - our beautiful planet’s increasingly wobbly tilt on its axis.
Anyway, sending you love Kei, and hoping your own grieving and healing trajectory is leading to expansion of your spirit X
Thank you very much for your love and writing such beautiful words of reflection.
Digital withdrawal is a good idea but I’m also glad Andrea’s words inspired you to write here!
I agree with you that Andrea was/is able to express in words something that is transcendental. It’s like they could tap into our collective soul experiences and the poetry of the universe.
Anticipatory grief…I feel for you as you grieve your mother’s decline, your children graduating into the next phase of their life and the precarious balance of our planet. Grief, I am learning, is another expression of our love. They go hand in hand. So if it’s of any consolation, I think all your anticipatory grief points to all the love you have in your life.
I also think that death is not the end. It’s a horizon. “Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limits of our sight.” - Rossiter Worthington Raymond
Andrea says something similar:
“On my death bed
I might not give much thought
to my pronouns,
or who got them wrong,
Who I am might not mean much then, in the moment right before I am about to become Everything.”
I take solace in the fact that my darling Bill has now become Everything and is more with me than he could ever be in physical form.
Lots of love to you, Claire. Thank you for connecting. xxx
"I eat the Stars" , is great Sarah , because its intriguing , unpredictable and enticing about a subject that could easily switch people off...or get them to turn away..
The title sums up how I feel about the rest of my time here , that I will eat the stars , the sunshine and all that life offers me 💓...
I would love to participate in your cover design x
I think I've finally got the words to say what I'm feeling properly -- there's an innate transformation that happens when we behold something so beautiful and mysterious as the stars. In taking them into ourselves for nourishment, we are transformed into what we behold. It's actually a eucharistic ("thanksgiving" in Koine Greek, no less!) reality. So beautiful.
This feedback is really helpful. The eucharistic element is something I was feeling...that "eating" was not about consuming, but about unification...but hadn't put it in those terms. Thank you
just want to add now, too, after meditating on it for a couple of hours: that this receiving that leads to unification that leads to transformation leads to an act of our will, because what can one do with such beauty than share it? So the receiving gets lived out in service to others. Makes me think of Dostoyevsky's recognition that "beauty will save the world".
ah yes -- in my understanding of it all, this unification transforms us, because the One who gives it is self-giving in their very self. There is a phrase that is used when offering the bread and wine of communion to people who come together around the eucharist: "Behold what you are, become what you receive". This truth is beautiful in alignment with the idea of eating the stars in the sense that our origins in carbon make us relations with all that is. And when we behold such beauty, and we welcome it in with the hospitality of our hearts, we're coming home in our souls to ourselves, one another, and the world. We behold what we are, and we become what we receive.
At the church where I am serving, the people come and make a circle around the altar to receive the eucharist: the people are gathered around as a family with the self giving of Creator at the center of it all. I'm always deeply moved by that.
Me too. I feel connected to Deep Time, evolutionary time, by beauty, light, the darkness, and the infiniteness of it all, drawing our hearts and minds in to relationship simply by being itself in our witnessing.
I liked the article (and the photo). I think it discusses the all important subject(s) you raise in your book and supports most of your views with other credible sources. Overall a big win 🤩
Ooooh, that's the perfect title, Sarah, and somehow sums up the last year of following you along on this journey.
I'm sure you know that looking at a wide horizon switches on the parasympathetic nervous system, bringing in calm and broadening perspective, so I can imagine wide night skies do the same. I've always been the most centred when living in places with wide open views. (And gosh what does that say about our current toxic love affair with small, narrow screens).
Your title also makes me think of the perspective that, no matter what happens to us in this slice of history, in this small microcosmic world, the Universe will still go on... and that's somehow settling for me too.
I love the book name. It’s strong. I felt a yearning when I first read it. To become more, to become part of something bigger and more beautiful. Also, not to just see the stars but to eat them, enjoy them, become them. Gain wisdom and knowledge. Gorgeous poem too. And the story with the author and how you got the rights to both poems.
Love your writing Sarah, it always brings me such comfort.
Greece sounds lovely. Even though I know the weather is weird, just being in our warm and green English summer amongst my friends in my village eco community is feeling good too. Inviting people to pick our surplus plums and greengages with conversations in our garden. A lot of my activism on pause as people at home aren't doing too well so I'm doing a bit of extra caring for them.
"I eat the stars" works for me. It conjures a blend of wistfulness and determination for me - which is certainly part of the spirit of your book. And will I think stimulate people's curiosity to learn more. It feels like a good follow-on to This One Wild and Precious Life.
A question for you: I've got a small book that I'm hatching - a coaching style book to accompany the seminars I run to help people talk about how they're feeling and find a way forward to take action that works for them. I'm citing your book in it. Should I use The Collapse Book and link to Substack? Will that stay live? Or should I use your new book title? Any thoughts? If yes, how should I cite it?
And yes, happy to add my bit of input for the cover design.
I haven't looked at the Weekender article yet, but will do in due course!
Neat to think about wistfulness and determination being cultivated around this tribute to life that is this book, in the birthplace of philotema no less. "I Eat the Stars" is like a yes to life, to beauty, to abundance -- a "thank you" to the invitation to "take and eat", to take care, to be a part of, to steward beauty and abundance and consume in ways that create ecosystems of grace with one another and creation instead of the Moloch worship our systems are built on.
‘I eat the stars’ is lovely especially if it brings people to the poem.
I am often awed by the thought that we are all OF the stars as well, and never cease to feel the wonder when I look at them (except for the smack of dismay as a string of Starlink satellites trundles by)
I’d love to give cover feedback if you still need it.
When I first saw one I genuinely freaked as I had not heard of them - it was like 15-20 odd ‘normal’ satellites all in a row, sometimes they are close together, say 1cm (obviously not IRL but you get what I mean, and sometimes maybe a handspan or 2) I think when you see them in a string like that they are fairly new releases as far as I can make out. They must spread out after a few orbits. But the man is taking over space without much of a murmur.
I loved it when I read it and even more when I read why. I’m about to turn 39 and managed to survive non-Hodgkins. So now I’m crying. I remember the nights Rebecca describes well. Thank you always Sarah. X
And the best thing about the night sky is not the stars , it is the space between them. The vastness. And the further into nature you go, the darker and quieter it becomes, and slowly the dark space becomes filled more and more and more
Fabulous title! Such a trip coming to titles such as this.
You are inviting your reader into the book with an invitation - which has been your tag/trick for a long time!
And also, the answer to the your thesis is smack bang on the front of the book. It makes me think about the title and its meaning, which in itself, is helping the reader understand the lens for reading the book.
Very exciting to see it out there next year. It’s a superb and important book. If you do a hard copy can you design / print like your last two? They would make a beautiful set.
Sarah, I love the title! I'm also remembering the creative collaboration you did with IKSRE "This Very Moment." Perhaps a hint for the title of your book was shared then? I love that Rebecca Elson was a poet and an astronomer. It makes sense.
I have been reading the poems of Andrea Gibson lately- their words have given me so much solace, especially the "Love Letter From the Afterlife" and other quotes I've come across such as: "If we never deny the inevitable end of the story, we will write it more beautiful while we're still alive" and "Who I am might not mean much then, in the moment right before I am about to become Everything."
Thank you for sharing the PDF of the article. I missed it when it came out. I look forward to taking my time to read it.
The past couple of days I have been listening to Joni Mitchell's song "California" and the first verse reminded me of you in Paris.
Sitting in a park in Paris, France
Reading the news and it sure looks bad
They won't give peace a chance
That was just a dream some of us had
Wishing you well in Greece as you complete your final edits. I love a full circle experience.
Kei x
P.S. Happy to contribute my thoughts (if they are of any help) re: the cover of your book.
Sitting in a park in Paris...x
how good is Andrea Gibson?? imagine quite the balm
sending you much love and warmth as always x
nat
Yes, Andrea Gibson is so good! Thank you for your love and warmth! Sending lots of love back! x
I immediately thought of the IKSRE piece too!
Yeah was a bit of a giveaway
Ah Joni Mitchell perfect for our times. Kei, And that’s a stunning quote from A Gibson. X
Lovely to hear from you, Dianne. Yes, stunning words of Andrea xxx
Haha yes Kei I feel like I’ve had a sabbatical to nowhere! Perfect timing for Sarah’s post and this AGibson quote x
I am new to Andrea Gibson, thanks! That quote about the inevitable end is stunning
Nicola, isn't Andrea's words just so moving and stunning? I have been saved by their words. x
Kei! Hello again! I’ve been MIA on these airwaves for quite some time now (I’ve been intentionally withdrawing from digital technologies to be more physically present with my children).
But your mention of Andrea Gibson’s work inspired me to reach out again… I’ve been revisiting/fully immersing myself in their work again since their recent death. I’ve found myself grieving their passing so much more than any other person I’ve never actually met in real life.
Andrea was (and still is) able to express something transcendental with their words. But it is their spoken-word delivery that really ‘gets’ (and breaks) me. There are many recordings on YouTube if you haven’t already watched them? Just before they died, they said to their partner Meg, and their friends…”I fucking loved my life”. I’ve been replaying this over and over in my head.
Andrea was only a few years older than me when they died (49), and my age (45) when diagnosed with cancer. As you (and so many of us here) know all too painfully, death can be our greatest teacher.
Another one of Andrea’s lines that keeps resonating in my mind is “let your heart break so your spirit doesn’t”. I feel this deeply, and their death is reminding me to grieve all the things I never allowed myself to throughout my life. I’m also feeling ‘anticipatory grief’ towards so many things…my elderly mother’s rapid decline towards her inevitable death, my children becoming (“grown ups”?) before my eyes, and of course - our beautiful planet’s increasingly wobbly tilt on its axis.
Anyway, sending you love Kei, and hoping your own grieving and healing trajectory is leading to expansion of your spirit X
Dear Claire,
Thank you very much for your love and writing such beautiful words of reflection.
Digital withdrawal is a good idea but I’m also glad Andrea’s words inspired you to write here!
I agree with you that Andrea was/is able to express in words something that is transcendental. It’s like they could tap into our collective soul experiences and the poetry of the universe.
Anticipatory grief…I feel for you as you grieve your mother’s decline, your children graduating into the next phase of their life and the precarious balance of our planet. Grief, I am learning, is another expression of our love. They go hand in hand. So if it’s of any consolation, I think all your anticipatory grief points to all the love you have in your life.
I also think that death is not the end. It’s a horizon. “Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limits of our sight.” - Rossiter Worthington Raymond
Andrea says something similar:
“On my death bed
I might not give much thought
to my pronouns,
or who got them wrong,
Who I am might not mean much then, in the moment right before I am about to become Everything.”
I take solace in the fact that my darling Bill has now become Everything and is more with me than he could ever be in physical form.
Lots of love to you, Claire. Thank you for connecting. xxx
"I eat the Stars" , is great Sarah , because its intriguing , unpredictable and enticing about a subject that could easily switch people off...or get them to turn away..
The title sums up how I feel about the rest of my time here , that I will eat the stars , the sunshine and all that life offers me 💓...
I would love to participate in your cover design x
I think I've finally got the words to say what I'm feeling properly -- there's an innate transformation that happens when we behold something so beautiful and mysterious as the stars. In taking them into ourselves for nourishment, we are transformed into what we behold. It's actually a eucharistic ("thanksgiving" in Koine Greek, no less!) reality. So beautiful.
This feedback is really helpful. The eucharistic element is something I was feeling...that "eating" was not about consuming, but about unification...but hadn't put it in those terms. Thank you
just want to add now, too, after meditating on it for a couple of hours: that this receiving that leads to unification that leads to transformation leads to an act of our will, because what can one do with such beauty than share it? So the receiving gets lived out in service to others. Makes me think of Dostoyevsky's recognition that "beauty will save the world".
ah yes -- in my understanding of it all, this unification transforms us, because the One who gives it is self-giving in their very self. There is a phrase that is used when offering the bread and wine of communion to people who come together around the eucharist: "Behold what you are, become what you receive". This truth is beautiful in alignment with the idea of eating the stars in the sense that our origins in carbon make us relations with all that is. And when we behold such beauty, and we welcome it in with the hospitality of our hearts, we're coming home in our souls to ourselves, one another, and the world. We behold what we are, and we become what we receive.
At the church where I am serving, the people come and make a circle around the altar to receive the eucharist: the people are gathered around as a family with the self giving of Creator at the center of it all. I'm always deeply moved by that.
I get a feeling of a 'one-ness'. ... certainly makes you fell less alone and isolated also.
Me too. I feel connected to Deep Time, evolutionary time, by beauty, light, the darkness, and the infiniteness of it all, drawing our hearts and minds in to relationship simply by being itself in our witnessing.
Brilliant title 💕
I liked the article (and the photo). I think it discusses the all important subject(s) you raise in your book and supports most of your views with other credible sources. Overall a big win 🤩
Ooooh, that's the perfect title, Sarah, and somehow sums up the last year of following you along on this journey.
I'm sure you know that looking at a wide horizon switches on the parasympathetic nervous system, bringing in calm and broadening perspective, so I can imagine wide night skies do the same. I've always been the most centred when living in places with wide open views. (And gosh what does that say about our current toxic love affair with small, narrow screens).
Your title also makes me think of the perspective that, no matter what happens to us in this slice of history, in this small microcosmic world, the Universe will still go on... and that's somehow settling for me too.
May it reach many hands, and hearts!
the wide perspective thing - yes! Expansiveness, ongoingness. thank you
I love the book name. It’s strong. I felt a yearning when I first read it. To become more, to become part of something bigger and more beautiful. Also, not to just see the stars but to eat them, enjoy them, become them. Gain wisdom and knowledge. Gorgeous poem too. And the story with the author and how you got the rights to both poems.
Love your writing Sarah, it always brings me such comfort.
the yearning...yes, I'm glad that comes across.
Hi Sarah,
Greece sounds lovely. Even though I know the weather is weird, just being in our warm and green English summer amongst my friends in my village eco community is feeling good too. Inviting people to pick our surplus plums and greengages with conversations in our garden. A lot of my activism on pause as people at home aren't doing too well so I'm doing a bit of extra caring for them.
"I eat the stars" works for me. It conjures a blend of wistfulness and determination for me - which is certainly part of the spirit of your book. And will I think stimulate people's curiosity to learn more. It feels like a good follow-on to This One Wild and Precious Life.
A question for you: I've got a small book that I'm hatching - a coaching style book to accompany the seminars I run to help people talk about how they're feeling and find a way forward to take action that works for them. I'm citing your book in it. Should I use The Collapse Book and link to Substack? Will that stay live? Or should I use your new book title? Any thoughts? If yes, how should I cite it?
And yes, happy to add my bit of input for the cover design.
I haven't looked at the Weekender article yet, but will do in due course!
re the citation...if your book is coming out pre June 2026, go with The Collapse Book serialisation on Substack. If after, go I Eat the Stars
xx
Thank you
a blend of wistfulness and determination...
Neat to think about wistfulness and determination being cultivated around this tribute to life that is this book, in the birthplace of philotema no less. "I Eat the Stars" is like a yes to life, to beauty, to abundance -- a "thank you" to the invitation to "take and eat", to take care, to be a part of, to steward beauty and abundance and consume in ways that create ecosystems of grace with one another and creation instead of the Moloch worship our systems are built on.
The title is just awesome; almighty and apt.
‘I eat the stars’ is lovely especially if it brings people to the poem.
I am often awed by the thought that we are all OF the stars as well, and never cease to feel the wonder when I look at them (except for the smack of dismay as a string of Starlink satellites trundles by)
I’d love to give cover feedback if you still need it.
I've never looked to see Starlink satellites... is it easy to identify?
When I first saw one I genuinely freaked as I had not heard of them - it was like 15-20 odd ‘normal’ satellites all in a row, sometimes they are close together, say 1cm (obviously not IRL but you get what I mean, and sometimes maybe a handspan or 2) I think when you see them in a string like that they are fairly new releases as far as I can make out. They must spread out after a few orbits. But the man is taking over space without much of a murmur.
I will take a look tonight
i just looked this up - feels so eery.... https://www.space.com/starlink-satellite-train-how-to-see-and-track-it
I loved it when I read it and even more when I read why. I’m about to turn 39 and managed to survive non-Hodgkins. So now I’m crying. I remember the nights Rebecca describes well. Thank you always Sarah. X
Oh Sarah, it’s perfect. The title and namesake brought tears to my eyes. Well done you x
I agree, it is perfect. When I read the title I thought yes of course. It is lovely, so poetic x
I eat the stars is perfect!
Thanks mate
I love it
It contains both the reason for our predicament (humans insatiable lust for adventure and more or something to avoid or to fill the void).
And the solution , to let it all engulf us, or melt into the night sky, each other and the world.
As soon as this rain clears I am going to head south into the darker skies and eat some stars, or let them eat me
hadn't thought of that double meaning
Oh and the coolest pic is the one in your old overalls 👌🏼✌🏼
Oh and it reveals reverence
And the best thing about the night sky is not the stars , it is the space between them. The vastness. And the further into nature you go, the darker and quieter it becomes, and slowly the dark space becomes filled more and more and more
On a very very very random front
Sarah
Check this out
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-28/faecal-microbiota-transplant-credited-with-curing-bipolar/105541522
Did you ever have to take a lot of antibiotics , bulimia , or did damage to your gut?
Ties in with the Hashimoto’s also
So happy for the woman and the change that she has experienced
didn't take a lot...but DID sign up as a candidate for that treatments some time back...and backed out, so to speak.
Hello and so wonderful to hear from you Sarah. You made my evening. Truly. And, the book title is fabulous ! I love it ! 💞
Fabulous title! Such a trip coming to titles such as this.
You are inviting your reader into the book with an invitation - which has been your tag/trick for a long time!
And also, the answer to the your thesis is smack bang on the front of the book. It makes me think about the title and its meaning, which in itself, is helping the reader understand the lens for reading the book.
Love it. Well done you!
I like your take on this...how it makes the reader think. Thx!
Very exciting to see it out there next year. It’s a superb and important book. If you do a hard copy can you design / print like your last two? They would make a beautiful set.
On to it!