The Meaning of Arakuto’s Stars
The small black walnut discs appearing on the surface of each Arakuto altar form the figure of a constellation: Ara, Pegasus, Draco... If, like us, you find them pretty, all the better. But know that their raison d'être is not a matter of aesthetics.
Astrophysicists tell us that nearly all the elements that make up our planet and the bodies of all living creatures come from dying stars and stellar explosions that occurred billions of years ago. Born on Earth, we are living descendants of the stars, forever connected to them. And each time we eat, sacrificing the lives of plants and animals for our own, we renew the immemorial bond that unites us with the universe, with the source of life, and the mystery of things.
Thus, the stars inlaying the body of each Arakuto altar are there to remind us of this bond of life, this privilege we have to exist, to enjoy, create, contemplate, marvel, love, and be loved. They invite us to awaken within ourselves a sense of the sacredness of this bond, by revering the life we take to nourish our own. Finally, Arakuto's stars urge us to rekindle the inner stars that have become extinguished, striving to shine a little more each day, not to impress or to be admired, but to bring our share of light to this world.
Master Jin Gerart adorning Pegasus of its stars.
It's to the poet Guillaume Apollinaire that we owe the presence of stars on Arakuto's altars. And to his words in the prologue to his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias, that the idea of constellating the altars came to me as a necessity. I read them aloud, when life darkens, when I need a spark to reignite the fire of my courage.
Thierry Forbois
Guillaume Apollinaire died on November 9, 1918, two days before the end of the Great War, weakened by a wound received in the trenches while wearing the French uniform, and ultimately succumbing to the Spanish flu.
“... Then the time came, the time of men
I went to war, like all men
It was at the time when I was in artillery
I commanded my battery at the northern front
One evening in the sky the stars' gaze
Throbbed like the eyes of newborns
A thousand rockets from the enemy trench
Suddenly woke up the enemy guns
… And all my cannoneers attentive at their posts
Announced that the stars were going out one by one
Then there were great cries among the whole army
THEY ARE EXTINGUISHING THE STARS WITH CANNONS
The stars died in this beautiful autumn sky
As memory dies in the brain
Of these poor old men who try to remember
We were there, dying from the death of the stars
And on the pallid gleams of the dark front
We did not know what to say with despair
THEY EVEN MURDERED THE CONSTELLATIONS
But a great voice from a megaphone
Whose horn came out
From I don't know what unanimous command post
The voice of the unknown captain who always saves us cried out
IT IS HIGH TIME TO REKINDLE THE STARS
And it was only a cry on the great French front
TO THE COLLIMATOR AT WILL
The servants hastened
The pointers arrived
The shooters shot
And the sublime stars were rekindled one after the other
Our shells ignited their eternal ardor
The enemy artillery was silenced, dazzled
By the shimmering of all the stars
That's it, that's the story of all the stars
And since that day, I light one after the other
All the inner stars that had been extinguished ..."
From Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Guillaume Apollinaire, freely translated by Thierry Forbois. Uppercase letters and punctuation are faithful to the style of the original French text in the 1918 edition by Paris, Éditions Sic publisher.
“... Then the time came, the time of men
I went to war, like all men
It was at the time when I was in artillery
I commanded my battery at the northern front
One evening in the sky the stars' gaze
Throbbed like the eyes of newborns
A thousand rockets from the enemy trench
Suddenly woke up the enemy guns
… And all my cannoneers attentive at their posts
Announced that the stars were going out one by one
Then there were great cries among the whole army
THEY ARE EXTINGUISHING THE STARS WITH CANNONS
The stars died in this beautiful autumn sky
As memory dies in the brain
Of these poor old men who try to remember
We were there, dying from the death of the stars
And on the pallid gleams of the dark front
We did not know what to say with despair
THEY EVEN MURDERED THE CONSTELLATIONS
But a great voice from a megaphone
Whose horn came out
From I don't know what unanimous command post
The voice of the unknown captain who always saves us cried out
IT IS HIGH TIME TO REKINDLE THE STARS
And it was only a cry on the great French front
TO THE COLLIMATOR AT WILL
The servants hastened
The pointers arrived
The shooters shot
And the sublime stars were rekindled one after the other
Our shells ignited their eternal ardor
The enemy artillery was silenced, dazzled
By the shimmering of all the stars
That's it, that's the story of all the stars
And since that day, I light one after the other
All the inner stars that had been extinguished ..."
From Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Guillaume Apollinaire, freely translated by Thierry Forbois. Uppercase letters and punctuation are faithful to the style of the original French text.