My imaginary life: Writer's Island

Earlier this week, I attended a lecture sponsored by a group interested in the future of space science, and they brought in a Nobel Prize winner who had helped to map some of what we think might be the history of the universe. It was fascinating, especially when he talked about how so much of what is in the world today is the leftover bits of exploding stars.

And I couldn't help but think then about what it is to be made of stardust, each of us, the air we breathe, the planet we cling to... we are the same stuff as those perpetual lights that give us hope in the dark night. Do we choose to take our place in the celestial dance?

The lecture went on to talk about a new telescope that is being built with origami folds to bloom like a flower when it is launched far into space, but I was still gliding on intergalactic winds, wishing I could bring the world with me into the star filled night.

My stardust hands
reach to you,
a similar galactic swirl,
child of the cosmos,
leftover debris
of a SUPERNOVA

Your sad eyes remind me
of drifting cold space,
eternities of darkness,
hoping for starlight
to shine through you
Illuminating a new planet

http://writersisland.wordpress.com/ Thanks to Rae for introducing me to yet another prompt...

Galaxy Zoo

Spent today mostly asleep, wincing at light and sound, or otherwise just being generally ill. Ugh. But I did get something interesting in my email (other than a lovely "get well" wish which was much appreciated.)

http://www.galaxyzoo.org/Default.aspx

is a project that allows folks to classify galaxies after taking a short test to show that you can get it right more often than not. (A score of 8 out of 15 tries) You look at pictures (sometimes blurry, sometimes really very nice) and classify the image as either an eliptical or spiral galaxy, and if it's a spiral galaxy, what way it's turning. There are also options to say "Ooops - star or other thing that is not a galaxy" and "Oh, wow, galaxy merger!"

As the person who forwarded it to me pointed out, "Better than solitaire."

Poem

When black night
Caresses the sharp sliver
Of needle thin, wailing
Newborn moon,
Who kisses the piercing wound?

Last night

Okay, so maybe I should have been resting more, but my husband and I went with a friend to the Yuri's Night party at the Russian Cultural Center. And it was fun and interesting, though I was rather restrained in accepting potables. (A half shot of the vodka was enough for me, thanks.) The lecture on the New Horizons project was fascinating, and I got to meet and talk to lots of folks interested in space before they turned up the music, at which point most of the geeky types like yours truly headed home.

Where my husband and I, at least, watched Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames. Wow.

Tomorrow, I'm really going to need to get some sleep to make up for all this cosmic exploration, but what a ride!

Oh, and Rae (yep, once again heading out with me on an adventure) put up her thoughts on the evening, too.

Tonight, I fell into the sky

My husband likes to stargaze, and the two of us occasionally attend star parties at the observatory a few blocks away, but tonight he had an invitation to go to one further away, with the bait that we might see Mercury. Well, we did. Tonight, I saw 5 planets: Mercury, Earth, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter. Wow. And I saw stars, and a couple of man-made satellites. (The last was really ironic, since I kept spotting satellites when I was wanting to see stars.) And I saw 5 moons tonight, with 4 of them belonging to Jupiter.

As everyone looked though the various telescopes that had been set up, my husband and I got out our binoculars. Early in the evening, we had the best viewing of the bats and the fireflies that were about, and of course we could track things best, plus getting to see Mars and Saturn together in the same field. People with more impressive viewing equipment invited us to see things like binary stars, the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter, and even the colors of stars.

But at one point, I reverted to the most basic observing equipment of all - I laid down on a bit of scrap fabric with a rolled up towel for a pillow and just watched the big dipper through the mist and haze that plagued the telescopes all night. I looked around, breathing the night air, smelling the grass beneath our feet, feeling the soft-rough texture of the grass, admiring the lacy spread of the trees surrounding our clearing against the midnight blue sky, and noticing the play of light on the cloudy haze. I watched the fireflies still signalling to each other even in the late hours, and I stood to look into the sky.

Oh, as I looked up, I felt the weight of my body, the anchoring weight of those binoculars and was grateful to them, as I looked into the sky, feeling that possibly only that cloud might prevent me from simply falling into infinity and becoming yet another point in the sky. Later, as the sky cleared, I again looked up, and was disoriented - no binoculars, no cloud, surely I was falling, and would have no hope of returning to myself if the One who took me from me did not return me correctly, and yet, what joy to dance among the stars, to spin in the cosmic dance, even as only a mote of dust. I was falling upward, into the sky, spinning in that infinite darkness that yet contains all those points of light.

Blessed are You, Ruler of the Universe, who has sustained us and kept us to this day.

I realized that this is the blessing that can never be said in vain. Some Jews wear new clothing on the second day of Rosh Hashanna - the Jewish New Year, so that the blessing can be said and not in vain, but each heartbeat, each breath, is a gift so precious that we could whisper, sing, and shout that blessing every moment and not have it be in vain. Tonight, I sit at this computer after falling into the vastness of the universe though the gift of returning, and my heart sings. Tomorrow, I am going to be a very sleepy fool, but tonight, I have danced with the cosmos.

Amen.