Stars in the Sea: on bioluminescence and beauty

Whidbey Island, Washington, USA - July 2026

stars above

stars below

in the swells

they scatter

with only

the touch of

a

hand

the sea strewn

with diamonds -

catch them

if you can

they shimmer but for

the blink of your tissue paper

eyelids

There is no moon in the sky tonight. It is new and dark and adorned only with stars. So is the dark water below, where we paddle in sea kayaks not far from the marina, but increasingly out into the dark waters. It is almost 11pm. The outcrop above us is rimmed with the dark silhouettes of craggy trees and full foliage.

To see silhouettes in the night is a reminder there is no true thing as darkness really.  What is more, when you look at swelling water below, where our paddles dig beneath the surface to push our boat forward, you can see a a translucent, almost glowing trail well up in its wake.

It is peak summer, mid-July, the time when the waters in the Puget Sound have just the right conditions to glow with tiny bioluminescent plankton - dinoflagellates - called noctiluca, or night lanterns. This is their breeding season where they form dense floating clusters on the water's surface. When agitated, the plankton burst with a chemical reaction and emits light. Like sea sparkles.

Trail your hand in the water and it’s as if you are touching magic - you will write magic spells into the water, watch glitter spin up from nothingness as you draw them into shapes and patterns along the side of the boat.

You can be lost for hours, wandering the strip of shore, looking for patches where the noctiluca are dense enough that they are bright and responsive to movement and agitation. Some spots are better than others, depending on the density of organisms and how much light pollution hits the human eye. Whisk the water and it’s like mixing a bowl of stardust. Take a badminton racket through the water and you may as well be a fairy waving her wand to cast a spell.

Words aren't good at capturing the wonder of a world illuminated even in darkness. The sea sparkles, with little glimmers of blue-green that sometimes last a little longer on the netting of a racket, are almost perfectly circular in their little beacon of light.

I tilt my head back to look up at the sky coming into focus as the night deepens and we float farther away from shore. My eyes adjust as best they could with their astigmatism and their nystagmus and their uncorrectable 20/100 vision.

The universe winks. A planet shines brightly. The big dipper is impeccably clear and a shooting star gleams ever so briefly as I make a wish and then it disappears. Never have I seen a shooting star, between the obscuring of a light-polluted sky and my vision issues.

Here I am, suddenly able to see the wonder of it all. Still not to the same clarity as my peers, but more average, with a sharpness that makes my eyes water. A sea of stars above me and below.

As my friend would say, we are witnessing the sublime.

The kind of beauty that has no measure.  

*****

Beauty.

Everywhere.

In the creases of our wrinkles. In the pattern of packed sand as the waves push and pull. In blooming flowers. In the trajectory of shooting stars. In every sunrise and sunset, and in the crescent of the moon. In monsoon rains and in purple lightning. In the scent of jasmine and the crispness of pine. In the language of tears gathering at the corner of a closed eye.

The creatures I envy most are those beings where beauty comes from within. From a quiet space of never needing to ask for permission. Never needing the eye of the beholder to determine the worth of being beheld.

 You know how in poetry and love songs around the world, a lover is often compared to the face of the moon? Bright in the dark of night? I have always thought I’d rather be a star than the moon. There are many stars, but stars bring their own light. They do not need an external source to project illumination upon their being. Stars will always be lit, whether through day or night.

They shine with an integrity I still battle every day to possess.

Like the noctiluca, who generate their own illumination, though perhaps with some external factors, the chemical reaction that occurs within their forms is self-contained. Then there are flowers, which, as cliché as it may be, are such true forms of beauty. They each bloom as they are meant to, in their own pattern, their own likeness and they are each beautiful. I find it almost wrong to compare one bloom to another. Together they create a bouquet, a garden where beauty is an emergent property born of individual elements side by side. Each bloom is beautiful in their solitude and their companionship.

Our human beauty though is a chase, a race, and a measuring stick. Our desire to shine is a constant fight for attention, a competition to be seen and noticed. As if being seen is what decides whether we shine, not the actual chemical reaction of shining itself.

On days of darkness, when I struggle to wonder how to stay afloat in this world, where I cannot find a reason I want to go through another day, or how I might stand out in a crowd of millions of people who are better looking, higher-earning, more loved and desired, more successful, more settled, I come back to this poem by Marianne Williamson.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.”

-- Marianne Williamson

The stars, the noctiluca, the flowers that bloom, and anything in the natural world that moves us beyond measure is that kind of liberating presence. A visceral nod to the power of beauty as a state of being and not an aesthetic. Not a design principle, but the presence of fully inhabiting expression, without analysis, without trying to draw some kind of reaction.

The noctiluca do not know their sparkling bursts in the water move us onlookers into a place of awe and wonder, perhaps surrender too. But they do it anyway. Because that is their way.

Flowers neither know nor care that their colors speak to our moods, our souls, that seeing a bloom on the sidewalk in the spring fills our winter-weary hearts with hope.  But they bloom anyway. Because that is their way.

And certainly, the stars up above do not become and blink, wink and flirt with us, call us into a stupor and ask us to surrender our wishes to them as they die because they think our worship of them will make them shine brighter. They are radiant because that is their way.

What would it be like, to be you and to be me, if we too do whatever we are meant to do, shine in the ways our hearts ache for each day, not because we hope to be seen, but because we cannot help but be luminous? Could it be, that radiance is our way too?

This is Issue 6 Micromoments. If you made it this far, I hope you had some tea with you and found some kernel of a thought, or reflection to consider.

This newsletter is one big experiment. I welcome your thoughts, suggestions, reflections and questions/concerns any time. Please feel free to reply to this newsletter. I'll be listening on the other side! - Kamna