There are living rocks up there as there are down here, and the dark spaces between the stars are not a vacuum, but solid lands that have mass and sentience, reflecting places and times on earth. I can see the pattern—right up until the point I try to write it down, when it disappears like smoke.

Cultures that sustain cohesive mythological images connect individuals to the four orders of mystery: the transcendent (the gods), the environment (their home in nature), the tribe (the social fabric), and their own psychological grounding (personal identity). History is not kind to such mythic images, however. The luster of the gods fades, and

What we have with the Boorong is a proof of concept that star lore can be used to guide disparate populations to a specific site for a multitude of spiritual and practical reasons.