Gazing Outward
I have fond memories of peering skyward with my father. We would climb into a tree to watch the sunset and record its time and position throughout the year. We would step outside on frigid winter full moon nights, measuring the length of our moon shadows to determine when the moon was highest in the sky. On warm summer evenings, bedazzled by fireflies and serenaded by whip-poor-wills, he would teach me the constellations and the stars, with his own descriptions and mnemonics. Vega, Altair, and Deneb of the Summer Triangle. Leo the lion. Bootes the kite. Delphinus the little dolphin. Pegasus the square. Sagittarius the teapot. The great snakes of Draco and Serpens. The big and little dippers. Scorpio the scorpion. “Please, Pleiades, let Cassie-go-pee-a.”
Of course I wanted a telescope to see the details of the planets and the galaxies and nebulae shown on the sky maps, and one Christmas I was surprised to unwrap a big cardboard-tube 6” Dobsonian reflector - a clunky but very useful magnifier that I still use nearly 30 years later.
I can often forget to look upward, to allow my eyes to adapt to the darkness, to notice which of the planets are transiting overhead. I look forward to my annual solstice night on Marys Peak, finding even the faint constellations far from city lights, observing the full glory of the Milky Way, seeing the Andromeda Galaxy rise into view as a fuzzy smudge comprising a hundred billion suns. Or some years I am simply encased in cloud, the mountain’s moist eyelid held closed with me tucked away beneath.
The stars and constellations and planets are rich in earthly meanings; they have been observed and named by all human cultures, and their motions tell a story of the turning seasons. Vega, the lyre, is directly overhead in midsummer. Pegasus, the oddly rectilinear flying horse, watches over autumn evenings. Orion, the supposed hunter that has always appeared more bovine to me, shines brightly in the south in midwinter. The twin beacons of Gemini herald spring.
Astronomers have deduced a truly remarkable amount of information about the universe by simply analyzing and magnifying the arriving light and other electromagnetic radiation. So it is that we know that Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star nearing the end of its life at a distance of 550 light-years. And Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, is a relatively ordinary star twice the mass of our sun that happens to be one of our nearest neighbors at a mere 9 light-years or 50 trillion miles.
As a scientist, I find that an understanding of ecology gives me a greater intrinsic appreciation for warblers, that an understanding of genetics and cell biology gives me a greater intrinsic appreciation for the wonders of our own physical bodies, that an understanding of geology gives me a greater intrinsic appreciation for our home planet. But I can’t say that I feel the same way about astronomy. Certainly there is a sense of humility, of awe, in seeing how vast and complex the universe is compared to our planet. The distances are so immense, however, that an intuitive understanding is effectively impossible. Moreover, with no intended disrespect to the intelligence of astronomers I must believe that their interpretations are incomplete; that there are important truths about the nature of the universe that we simply cannot discover from our vantage point, our physical scale, the window of time within which we can observe.
To get a sense of this problem of scale, let us first journey the other direction, to the very small. We can all visualize a meter, 3.3 feet. Divide that by a thousand and we are in the realm of fleas, a millimeter. Divide that by a thousand again and we are in the realm of cells, measured in micrometers or millionths of a meter. Divide that yet again by a thousand and we are in the realm of the molecular machinery that is the basis of our biochemistry: proteins and ribosomes and DNA. Divide that by a thousand once more and we are in the realm of individual atoms. Divide that once again by a thousand and we are in the realm of protons and neutrons and atomic nuclei, measured in “femtometers” or 10^-15 meters.
Let’s imagine that we exist at the scale of an atomic nucleus, which appears “normal” size, about a meter. The strangeness of electrons - their “spin” that is not actually spinning, their simultaneous existence as particles and probability fields - would seem perfectly commonplace. Our perception of time would probably extend; perhaps a second in Earth-time would feel like a year. We would perceive that the universe is 99.9% empty space partially occupied by these electrons, with widely scattered atomic nuclei. Peering outward, we would perceive molecules, molecular interactions, organized clusters of matter across space. But we could not understand gravity, except in the most theoretical sense, it having virtually no effect at our scale. And there would be no way for us to comprehend that some massive compilations of atoms and molecules are alive, aware, with their own consciousness and thoughts and perspectives.
With that thought experiment in mind, let us journey to the very large. Multiply our meter by a thousand and we have merely moved to a 15-minute walk. Multiply that by a thousand and we are part-way across the continent. Multiply that by a thousand and we are out beyond the moon. Multiply that by a thousand and we are beyond the orbit of Jupiter. Multiply that by a thousand and then by ten and we have reached a light-year - the distance traveled by light in one Earth year or just under 10^16 meters - and we are still only a quarter of the way to our nearest neighboring star.
It turns out that we are half-way - on an exponential scale - between protons and light-years. This means that the same limitations that afflict our hypothetical proton-people perceiving human beings will necessarily afflict human beings perceiving the galaxy and universe. We cannot truly make sense of the phenomena that we call “black holes”. There are surely forces acting at the galactic scale that we can neither sense nor comprehend. The galaxy could even be a self-aware, living organism, to whom our year would seem but a second and our solar system but a single cell, and we would have no way, from our vantage point, of knowing this.
I introduce this thought experiment in part to suggest that the supposed cosmology that arises from modern science - the idea of a Big Bang followed by random molecular motion creating the entire visible universe - is simply another creation myth peppered with data and theory. I also find it much more interesting to gaze outward into mystery, into a vast universe that is quite possibly filled with life and consciousness and intention, than into a smattering of long-burning nuclear fireballs widely scattered across an interminable void.
One thing that ought to be clear to all humans but that many - including some of our most acclaimed and most intelligent - do not understand is that we, our human bodies, do not belong anywhere out there. Space is not the final frontier, nor even is Mars. We are Earthlings. We are irrevocably of this planet. We are like cells in the living body of the biosphere, wholly dependent on the particular mixture of gases in the air, on water, on living food grown upon sunlight and minerals, on the temperature and pressure maintained by the atmosphere, on the gravity generated by the mass beneath our feet. Humans in space, or on the Moon, or on a theoretical station on Mars, are like cells in a petri dish - entirely dependent upon synthetic processes for survival and doomed to instant death outside of that protective space. Dreams of “terra-forming” Mars are pure fantasy, with no basis in present or potential technologies.
Life on Mars or on a spaceship due to arrive at our nearest neighboring star in 12,000 years would be devoid of anything spontaneously alive, of any of the dynamic cycles and processes that drive Earth’s biosphere. No bluebirds nesting in backyard boxes. No Dendroica warblers. No owls calling at night. No scents of lilac or honeysuckle drifting on the breeze. No rain, no thunderstorms, no clouds forming their endless intricate patterns. No oceans, no rivers, no waterfalls. No wilderness, no huckleberries, no thousand-year-old trees. Just rocks and dust and metal and intricate life-support systems, the maintenance of which would be the primary focus and chief anxiety of any voyagers.
It is strange to me that we humans should always wish to transcend. Abrahamic religions seek to transcend into Heaven, as if Earth is just some sort of temporary trialing ground where we must endure and make the right choices. The modern secular religion of Progress takes transcendence more literally and seeks to rise upward at the tip of a rocket, to leave our supposedly mundane and degraded Earth behind, to colonize outward across the solar system and the galaxy. Notwithstanding the fact that this vision is impossible, why is it that so many humans want more than anything to be not here?
At the heart of an ecological spirituality lies something that is the opposite of transcendence. Let us call it embodiment, a belief that we are here to be here, that the path toward joy and happiness lies in a conscious choice to be more fully present, to choose in each moment to see and hear and touch and taste and smell that which surrounds us, to affirm our belonging within the biosphere, to participate and collaborate in the weaving of the creative pattern that is evident in evolution, in meandering rivers, in art and music and architecture, in gardening and seed saving and plant breeding.
I choose to be here. So when I gaze upward past the planets to the Milky Way and beyond, I marvel at the mysteries of vast scale - a scale at which we are as atoms and much is necessarily beyond our capacity to perceive and comprehend - but I have no desire to be out there. In the words of Dave Carter: This is my home, this is my only home. This is the only sacred ground that I have ever known. And should I stray in the dark night alone, rock me Goddess in the gentle arms of Eden.
I love your writing for the accessibility of big ideas and wonder for an old cynic and his young son.
This is wonderful. Thank you.