{Star trails are visible due to Earth’s rotation, which causes stars to appear to move across the sky. As Earth spins on its axis, long exposure photographs can capture this motion, showing stars as streaks or arcs in circled image. Wikipedia}

Trailing Star Circles

Only 4 or 5 times have I felt the earth spin on it’s axis in orbit at 64,800 miles an hour around the sun. It mostly 

happens after a full day of climbing Scotland’s highlands or walking on 

her pebbled beaches where the salty wind cleanses the soul’s cobwebs, and I pause breathlessly 

to breathe in purified life. 

Smitten in those holy places, I stretch, full out, on my belly, and lean into the grasp of Majesty. Poured-out to the utmost, there I offer a life undone in full surrender. The kind that will cause me to limp. 

And when I return home and darkness falls, (It usually comes as 

a light thief that brings the gift of rest.) I lay quaking upon my bed, broken and 

restored at once, by the ethereal gradient of the day. 

The whole world has unraveled 

in that unspeakable, living beauty or rather that ineffable Holy Presence 

woven into the land and sea and sky and rocks and trees and blooms of beloved 

Scotland. There in the quaking and darkness, I feel the earth spin on its axis 

as the mystery of the day settles upon me. With my mouth gaping wide open, I clutch the sheets of my bed as the 

globe speeds, in orbital curve around it’s axis,

fiercely stirring the stars

to spin trailing arcs of gold, white, red, and blue–around and around the solar system.

The stars draw circles reflecting redemption and praise,

their shining paths a testimony of Him that is faithful. They do not wander without purpose;

they trace the steady 

pierced hands of Jesus who stood with their Maker at creation. These heavenly beaming portals popped into glorious existence when God whispered, “Let there be light.”

Amidst the starry trailing circles, my spirit arises to stillness. In the quiet, the pipes, the bagpipes of Scotland mourn 

and weep like the silvery skies above. Arise, oh, Scotland! For He who died 

did not in vain.

Stand and tremble. Feel the awesome earth turning, and shudder

in its glorious and fearsome spinning, the stars trailing a cosmic circled ribbon of crimson blood and water,

crimson blood and water.

-Bonnie Saul Wilks

Photo credit: Feature image from Wikipedia

Photo Credit: EarthSky Community Photos