Last night, as I looked up into a clear Colorado sky, I observed a blinking, violet light moving across the heavens; a UFO—unidentified flying object. At least it was unidentified by me. If it was a plane, it was within several miles. If it was a satellite, it could have been as high as 22 thousand miles—less than three times the diameter of the earth.

I thought about all the humanly created objects flying around the earth, including not only planes and satellites but thousands of pieces of space junk in the atmosphere and exosphere of Planet Earth. And I thought about how they could look a lot like a star as a person gazes into the night sky. Yet, they are so different—such a different size and proximity, so different in how they move in the sky. So different in their very nature.

That’s when it struck me how this is a symbol for what has happened to our primal spirituality. Within the space of consciousness, we can relate to something humanly created—a thought, a belief, a philosophy; even an attitude, mood or emotion. We can orient to that humanly created reality as if it were our north star. Our life can revolve around it. We can navigate our life by it.

The real North Star—Polaris—is believed to be 323 light-years away from Planet Earth. It is a multiple star consisting of a supergiant star and two smaller companions. To us, it appears to stand almost motionless above the North Pole, and so it has been used by sailors for navigation for millennia. The stars of the entire northern sky appear to revolve around it.

For me, this symbolizes the most essential choice for my life and for the life of anyone. Can I find my own north star within the heaven of my Being? Can I look past all the humanly created objects in consciousness to find what is real? Is the star to which I am orienting really a star? Something to steer my life by? Or just a UFO? Or space junk that shouldn’t be taking up space in my consciousness?

Primal spirituality is not manmade. It is Godmade. Yes, there are all kinds of manmade things in the mind and heart of most every human being. But there are the Godmade things too. Like the North Star, there is a steady point of reality that is a reliable point of orientation within us, a reality by which we can navigate our life. It is a reality that contains all of who we are and all of what we can become. Following that star, we come home to who we are.