Week 6, Storytelling: How Stars Became So Bright

How Stars Became So Bright

(Source: Google)

            Being a star is one of the greatest jobs you could receive from God.  I mean really think about it, you have the chance every night to watch over the whole world, and make light out of the darkness in the sky.  But stars have not always been bright; they once were very dim with almost no light. 

Long ago when the stars were dim there lived one bright star named Joy, Joy lived in a community of stars that barely made enough light, that they could hardly see each other.  Joy was tired of all the darkness and wanted it lighter.  Joy thought to herself that if she could get her community to be extremely bright that the brightness would spread through out the whole world.  Joy started talking to all the other stars trying to convince them to be brighter, and that being brighter would make them happier.  All of the other stars disagreed with her; they asked her how could we be happier if all we do is come out at night and watch all of the sad crimes that happen during and throughout the night.  Joy finally understood why the other stars were choosing to be so dark, because all they were paying attention to was the sadness of the dark.  Crime after crime, and death after death would happen every night as the stars would watch and after each sad situation a star would lose more light, even Joy started to pay attention to the sadness and started to lose her light. 

Eventually, Joy couldn't handle watching the sadness over the night and started to explain to the other stars that not only sad things happen in the dark.  She told them that there were plenty of happy things to watch, and she was going to prove it to them.  None of the other stars believed her, but they were willing to see what she had to show.

Joy had a whole plan of events to show the other stars and patiently waited until it started to get dark to round up her community.  Finally the first sign of darkness was showing and she first showed them a wedding.  She explained that this wedding had been in the makes for 10 months, and that the couple was madly in love.  After the wedding Joy showed the other stars a dance party that was going on, she told them to look how happy all of those people were to be dancing in the night.  Next she showed the stars a baby being born, and explained that new life creates new beginnings, which are always happy.  After each happy situation Joy shared with them she could see that the other stars lights were getting brighter and brighter.  By the end of the night each star had seen enough happiness that they were as bight as Joy, and thanked her for showing them the light. 

Authors Note:  “How Stars became so Bright” Is based off the stories from West African Folktales.  Most of these stories have expiations on why certain things happen; for example, “How the Tortoise Got its Shell”, and this is where I got the idea to make a story up on how the stars became so bright. 

Bibliography: This story was based of off West AfricanFolktales, collected from African Students at a teacher-training center in Accra, written in the early years of the 20^th Century.