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Hello friends, Tonight, I want to tell you about something absurd and crazy. Something of the bedrock of our reality that we carry but the dimmest awareness of — because it hasn’t yet been adequately integrated into our culture and stories. That something is space. Or, the universe. Or perhaps more specifically, the size of the universe and living with the gnosis that all of this is taking place “on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” That photograph above — that’s an image of Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager space probe from just beyond Neptune, about 3.7 billion miles away. It just stops you in your tracks, huh? A fun little exercise: look up from the screen you see that above photo on at the world around you. Consider that all of this is happening on that tiny little dot on your screen. Go back and forth, back and forth, from that photo to your surroundings — it helps the realization seep deeper into one’s understanding. I’m doing this as I write in this hip, bustling, late hours coffee shop. By going back and forth, back and forth, between that photo and the scene playing out around me, the knowledge that all of this is happening on that little dot seems to grow into something deeper: the feeling. A few hours into continually doing this while writing about the experience, this place is starting to take on the galactic feel of that bar scene in Star Wars on Tatooine.
Ever since 2019, when I underwent the potent combo of reading Astrophysics for People in a Hurry while hiking the Annapurna in the Himalayas and noticing the moon floating by while looking up at those monolithic mountains, I’ve been experimenting with various ways to integrate that “all of this is taking place on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam” feeling into my everyday experience. I find this cosmic awareness to be a bottomless source of wonder. Awe can be found in even the most boring places, like waiting rooms at the doctor’s office or DMV when you cast your awareness to a larger scale and marvel at the fact that you can really be this bored while hurtling through the endless void of space. The most awesome experiences are even more awesome when you grasp your place in space too. Imagine driving your car late at night on a road trip. Far away from city lights, you stick your head out the window into that blast of cold air, give a guttural yell, and look up at the sky of stars above you not just as a black canvas with twinkle lights for drawing silly little constellations on, but as a literal friggin’ window to the universe. Recognizing this, you pull the car off the empty stretch of highway, que your favorite song to dance to at full volume, and turn to your buddy riding shotgun who is highly perplexed by your antics and say: “You know, if you think about it, the stars aren’t just above us, they’re all around and below us too.” Immediately you hit play, throw the car doors open, and get out and dance together with the rapturous awe of creatures celebrating the incomprehensibly vast creation of God omnipotent. That’s road trippin’ with cosmic consciousness my friend. Still, in my opinion, the best reason to integrate our place in space into our everyday consciousness is to help us realize that we are not just riding shotgun with our buddy in the next seat over — we are all cruising space on this planet together. Nothing says, “WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER” more clearly than the perspective of the blue-green Earth, teaming with motion and life rich and diverse, hanging in the endless void of space. In a time of global crises and fierce political division, could there be a more pertinent time to pump this perspective? On and off for over a year, I’ve been tinkering with the article below. Entitled The Size of the Universe, Einstein, and Cosmic Religion it chronologically recounts and attempts to recreate my experience of attempting to grasp of the size of the universe the past few years. Laden with video and images, beginning in the Himalayas and ending with a bold leap from Nietzsche’s shoulders to a more expansive, scientifically-sound conception of God, writing it, for me, was a truly full send. I kindly ask you to dig the piece — to check out the nineteen minute Overview documentary, meditate on the meaning of the Earthrise image, and gape at that crazy universe zoom-out video. Collectively, these things have invigorated my everyday experience and I see contemplating the cosmos as a navigable path to expanding our sense of identity from self to Self. Love & stoke my fellow space travelers, Ethan P.S. I recently re-introduced comments below articles and hope to cultivate a culture of dialog —would love to hear your thoughts and feels on our place in space.
P.P.S. WONDER WANDER 2022 begins on October 13th. A shout out to all my cosmic compadres in attendance this year! I am stoked to share this time and space and celebrate with you.
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