HOW THE STARFISH CAME TO BE

It happened a very long, long time ago, so the story is told. There was a great storm in the heavens high above the Earth. The wind blew among the cosmos with tremendous force and sent the stars flying through the universe helter-skelter until hundreds of thousands of them were falling towards the Earth.
Never had the heavens experienced such a storm before that extended so far and wide. It nearly blew the planets right out of their orbit and sent winds and rains out of the heavens to the Earth below causing great floods everywhere. The seas and oceans rose up in a rage, the waves so high the fell crashing over the tops of mountains.
In the heavens the little stars were so afraid that fled to hide behind the moon but alas the wind found them and blew them everywhere until they were falling, falling toward the Earth and the raging seas. They tumbled and tumbled and fell so fast out of the heavens that their glow could not keep up with them and raced behind like an arch of burning light but it could not catch the flight of the falling stars so rapidly were they flying through space to the Earth below. As the stars passed through the clouds their glowing light was left behind and that is the lightning we see on stormy nights. It is the light from the falling stars looking for the stars that they lost in the great storm.
When the giant waves saw what was happening to the stars the waves reached up into the heavens like giant hands to catch them and carry them safely to Earth and deep into the sea. And that is how the starfish came to be.
These fallen stars have lived in the oceans and the seas ever since and that is where you will find them today, happily living in our oceans and sea but they have never forgotten their heavenly home or the great storm that blew them down to the Earth below.
Someday when you are walking on the beach or looking in tidal pools along the ocean shore you may see a starfish there that rode in on the tide hoping that maybe it will one day find its shine again, find its pathway back to the stars that still remain in the heavens.

Annette Bromley