The brilliant light we see from our star is 8 minutes old. A pretty quick trip from the sun to our 3rd planet. But when we ponder the other stars in our night sky…the ones that twinkle at us on a clear night… these twinkles are tens of thousands, even millions of years old. For the most distant ones, their brilliance in our sky has far outlasted their existence; The light we see, originating from a star that no longer exists.
The science of stellar light can be for us some wisdom of significance. That the challenge and darkness, the swirling clouds of extreme pressure and temperature that birthed all the matter that became the earth and everything on it, and us; The fact that it all began in a dense cloud of dust is a beginning whose end is something that shines beyond our own imagination, beyond our own dreaming, to become who-knows-what.
We are the shining result of an exploded star… our own challenge and pressure transformed into who-knows-what brilliant thing.
The black boy on the roof with his telescope – the story of Neil deGrasse Tyson and interpreted in poetry by Aracelis Girmay, is to some a cute story of a chance encounter, and to others a familiar one of racial aggression, a near-miss story of almost-violence, the class and race system of profiling, of danger, of fear. In this poem, we recognize the fear of neighour, the mistrust of difference, the danger of misused authority, the threat of systemic racism and violence, the all-too-real terror that exists in our world. All of these dreads have something to do with the way we see each other, the way we gather ourselves into our tribes and bubbles, our “us’s and them’s”. From her poem:
“The distance between the white neighbour who cannot see the boy who is her neighbour, who in fact is much nearer to her than to the moon; the boy who wants to understand the large and gloriously unhuman mysteries of the galaxy; the boy who despite America, has not been killed by the murderous jury of his neighbours’ imagination and wounds.”
Whatever wisdom we share with one another and consume to make part of our living, must be that which counters that culture of fear and distrust in favour of one that sees beyond our smallness.
The delightful film about Carl Sagan’s young life, inspired by the stars…reminds us of that play between small and big. Sagan’s successor in the realm of cosmic wisdom teacher, Neil deGrasse Tyson, shares the second part of what must only be the start:
“…When I look up at the night sky, and I know that yes we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up – many people feel small, because they’re small and the universe is big. But I feel big because
my atoms came from those stars.”
What difference could it make if we all were allowed to feel big, and not small, not inconsequential, not so weak that the pressure of the world squeezes us out, but big, important.
Discoveries of new wisdom, new science, new ideas and ways of seeing; all these things help us to look at ourselves and our world differently. Any knowledge and wisdom worth anything to us should help us to alter our perception.
Hearing a friend tell a story about their day alters our perception. Meeting a new person and learning something about a life, a place, an experience different from our own alters our perception. Experiencing both great joy and deep sorrow is a discovery that alters our perception. Going about our boring, ordinary days with an open mind and heart….all of it is a task in altered perception.
We are here to expand our consciousness, to include more and more perspectives, people and possibilities. We may not care about astrophysical descriptions of light and matter, but we are here to shine our own light and live lives that matter; We are here to alter our perceptions and allow that to increase the size of our lives…as large and important as the stars from which we came. Suns that shine not despite their explosive pasts but because of them. That is a life full of spirit.
May we continue to alter our perceptions and live into a life that matters. A life of light. A life that shines beyond its own existence. A life filled with the wisdom of star stuff. May it be so for you…in so many ways.
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