Star of Wonder, Star of Night

"He came to his own, and his own did not receive him." - John 1:11

Dec 09, 2025

Every holiday season we tell the story of three men following a star. Wanderers who were paying attention, noticing changes in the sky. Following the light. These Magi, the wise men, were not part of the local power structure. They were astrologers. Stargazers. They were outsiders who sensed subtle shifts. And they were wise enough to follow their own inner knowing, regardless of what others might say or think.

I have been thinking about how this pattern repeats across time: It is rarely the people in charge who recognize a new consciousness arriving and who are brave enough to listen. It is the ones on the outskirts. The sensitive ones. The ones who feel outcast or misunderstood. The ones who are paying attention in ways that cannot be measured by institutions or systems in power.

As I move quietly through this season that holds so much memory and longing, I think of Maisa. My own stargazer.

Eclipse viewing while camping near Elko, Nevada, October 2023

She was a child who liked to look up, really look. Not as entertainment, but as orientation. As if the night sky was a language she was learning to read. As if some part of her remembered that guidance rarely comes from the centers of power or the loudest ones in the room, but from the quiet places above and the knowledge within. She took any opportunity available to sleep outside under the stars. Being energetically embraced by the Milky Way felt more natural to her than being under a blanket.

Maisa was always an outsider in the way the world defines it, though I don’t think she ever really saw herself that way. She was sensitive to injustice before she even had the vocabulary for it. She defended the small, the overlooked, the animals, the kids who never quite fit in. She felt things intensely: truth, joy, love, unfairness, and she responded with instinctive empathy, kindness, and compassion.

In another era she might have been one of the sky-watchers. One of the ones who sensed the shift before others. One of the ones who noticed the star or subtle changes in the sky. And so, this season, the story of the Magi feels different to me.

The birth that happened far from palaces. The message carried not by those holding power, but by wanderers. The life of a teacher who aligned himself with the people pushed to the margins. Others who were outcast. On the fringe. The death at the hands of a system threatened by compassion. And the later centuries where the message was reshaped, institutionalized, and eventually wrapped in tinsel, commerce, and flashing holiday light displays.

This seems to be what human systems do. They take something wild and luminous and try to contain it. Take something meaningful and try to monetize it. But underneath all of that, the original story is still there: A star appears. A child is born in a place no one expects. And the first to notice are the outsiders, the ones who can see light in the dark.

This year, I’m choosing to honor that version of the story.

The version where truth arrives quietly. Where sensitivity is a compass. Where the ones who don’t fit are the ones who understand. Where following a flicker of light and the calling of your heart is sometimes the most faithful act a person can make.

When I think of Maisa, I think of that kind of light. Something bright enough to notice the world’s pain and brave enough to love it anyway. Something that still guides me, not from a place of power, but from the outskirts where real wisdom tends to live.

So this holiday, I am remembering this simple truth:

The light comes quietly.
And the outsiders see it first.