[Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team]
I depart from the usual course of these essays to comment on the photograph above. Norma didn't take this one, NASA did. It is a picture of one tiny rectangle of deep space. Deep space means anything outside our solar system, but to uncounted trillions of solar systems we are in deep space too, a planet at the arm of this galaxy pinwheeling in eternity. Looks like fireworks doesn't it?
I've read a lot of blogs about July 4th today and found them moving, thought-provoking, reflecting upon this 236 year-old experiment in democracy with favor, concern, worry, hope and celebration. The interests of those who produced the Declaration Of Independence are our interests too. Who are we? We are the artists, writers, gardeners, musicians, scientists, engineers, leaders and laborers certainly, every personality, every mother and father, everybody that accepts the awesome responsibility of bringing something new into the world.
The picture above might easily contain a billion worlds. Fireworks indeed. I wish them luck.
Us too. Happy 4th!
We are all just little specks of star dust whirling in orbit....all of us part of the great unknown.
ReplyDeleteWhat a photo. Kinda puts us into perspective when I see shots like that. The universe is limitless, so why do we think so limitedly?
ReplyDeleteDelores, Austan, it takes 7 rotations to get a planet through a week. A billion times that for a galaxy to do it. To calculate a universal week you need numbers familiar only to astrophysicists and college comptrollers. So much unknown, so much human limitation; because Creation has barely begun.
ReplyDeleteHow lovely to think of Creation warming up! I am borrowing some internet access this evening and can finally get some visiting done :-) A belated Happy 4th July! Wishing you the very best of fireworks!
ReplyDeleteThanks! And I wish you best speed on your move, Lily. A busy time, I know. You'll manage it more gracefully than we manage this country --that much is certain.
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