When I wrote The Starry Princess, I wasn't simply writing a children's story about a little princess looking into a beautiful night sky. I was writing about the search for God. I was writing about the search that began inside of me when I was young—the longing to know that there was something beyond what my physical eyes could see.
There has always been something inside of me that wanted to look behind the veil. I wanted to know: Who created all of this? What lies beyond the stars? What is behind this world that appears so solid and real? And perhaps most importantly: Who is the Beloved?
That is the deeper meaning behind The Starry Princess. The Princess looks upward at the stars, but eventually she discovers that the stars themselves are not what she is searching for. Their beauty is pointing toward something greater. They are signs. They are doorways. They awaken the question. And the question eventually leads her inward.
Throughout my own spiritual journey, prayer, meditation, contemplation, devotion and the desire to know God became incredibly important to me. I wasn't satisfied simply believing that God existed somewhere outside of me. I wanted an intimate relationship with the Creator. I wanted to know. I wanted to experience. I wanted to understand the mystery for myself.
And somewhere along that journey, I encountered what I would eventually understand as the Beloved. My understanding of that word was also deeply influenced by the mystical poetry of Rumi. When I discovered Rumi, something in his poetry spoke to a place inside of me that ordinary language could not reach. His relationship with Shams and the mystical language of the Friend and the Beloved fascinated me.
Love, in Rumi's poetry, seemed to become something larger than human love alone. The beloved becomes a doorway. The friend becomes a mirror. Love begins pointing toward its Source. That understanding became profoundly connected to my own experience of encountering my twin flame.
For me, the twin flame journey was never ultimately about another human being becoming God. It was about love awakening the search for the One who created love. Behind the beloved is the Beloved. Behind the friend is the One True Friend. Behind the extraordinary love we sometimes encounter in another human being is the mysterious Source from which love itself originates.
And that is what the star in The Starry Princess is trying to tell her. Look beyond my lit up face. There you will see the King himself. The Creator, the Beloved, your one true Friend. The star itself will eventually fade. Everything in the material world changes. Beauty changes. Bodies change. Relationships change. People enter and leave our lives. Even stars eventually burn away. But what is the Light behind the light? That is the question I want the Princess—and perhaps the child listening to her story—to begin asking.
Nurturing the Spiritual Imagination of Children
One of the reasons I love writing children's stories is because children still possess something many adults slowly learn to suppress: wonder. A child can look at the moon and imagine another world. A child can stare into the stars and wonder who placed them there. A child can close their eyes and travel somewhere entirely within their imagination.
And I believe there is something sacred about that ability. Our world teaches children very quickly to focus outward. What do you own? What do you look like? What will you become? How successful will you be? What can you achieve? What can you prove? But I also want children to learn to ask: Who am I inside? Where does love come from? What is consciousness? Why am I here? Is there something greater than what my physical eyes can see?
The imagination does not have to disappear when childhood ends. When it is nurtured through contemplation, prayer, meditation, creativity and inward reflection, imagination can become part of our spiritual life. It can become the place where we learn to become still enough to listen.
Opening the Spiritual Eye
There is another line in The Starry Princess that carries an especially personal meaning for me: Look with your spiritual eye. The physical eyes show us the external world. But mystics throughout history have written about another kind of seeing… an inward perception. Within Eastern spiritual traditions, this is sometimes connected with the chakras and what is often called the third eye.
For me, opening that inner awareness represents moving beyond intellectual belief and into spiritual experience. There are moments in deep prayer, meditation, devotion and contemplation when the ordinary boundaries of ourselves can seem to soften. The noise quiets. The separation disappears. And there can be an extraordinary sense of light, love and oneness. Those experiences have profoundly shaped my spiritual journey. And they shaped this story.
The Real Message of The Starry Princess
Perhaps the deepest message of The Starry Princess is very simple: Do not stop at the star. Do not stop at the person who awakens your heart. Do not stop at the miracle. Do not stop at the symbol. Do not stop at the beautiful thing that caught your attention. Ask what it is pointing toward. Love may awaken you. Beauty may awaken you. Another human being may awaken you. The stars themselves may awaken you. But eventually, the seeker begins asking: Where did this love come from? And perhaps that is where the greatest spiritual journey begins.
When I write stories for children, I hope I can preserve even a tiny piece of that curiosity within them. I hope they continue looking at stars. I hope they continue asking impossible questions. I hope they continue imagining worlds they cannot see. I hope they learn that there is an enormous universe outside of them… but there is also an enormous universe within.
And perhaps one day, somewhere in that inner universe, they too will encounter the mystery of the Beloved.
— Madison Meadows