It takes perspective to see the pattern.
It only seems visible when the sun and moon are in just the right position.
Often we look up and all we see is sky, or ceiling.
It's that rare moment, when the etches of tree branches, begin to resemble something you saw this time last year exactly, just for a flash, or the blink of an eye.
You might go around muting yourself until your voice has to be let out.
You might dream of a connection you disbelieve is out there.
You might wake up with a realization at the tip of your tongue.
It's something you noticed before though.
It may have been a long time ago.
The pattern is the whole point of the noticing.
How can I record my habits so I know what they are?
It's a simple question, I find myself asking, still unsure of the giant answer I just discovered.
In my sleep, I solved my own riddle. What is larger than me but still pertaining?
Here’s another. What do my dog, a pandemic, and president Trump all have in common? What does Bernie Sanders, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and my Mom also share in common with all the other things I have listed? Atmosphere.
When I woke up this morning, somehow I remembered that all of our problems and poetry on this Earth, have a third dimension that is too often forgotten.
I went to walk by a pond. A great blue heron and 20 geese orbited over head, both species passing in a circle above my little bulb. Everything I could lay my eyes on, under the hazy sky, all shared a common atmosphere, and generally, a perspective and a centering on this Earth. I hug trees and love this world as much as the next person, but we are not confined to the scope of the atmosphere around the Earth. Our existence, life goes billions of astronomical units beyond this measly atmosphere. When we forget to apply the vastness of space to our experience, we are existing in a shell of ignorance, ignoring the very important scope of life, of the world. In everything we can study, from human emotion to empathy to kindness and compassion, our understanding of things misses the truth if we exist with oblivion towards the scope of things. Just knowing about our own atmosphere is small minded, shrinking the purpose and the beauty therein.
What can I do to remember the stars, the vastness of existence? Personally, it seems reasonable that reading more about our Universe will teach me something about my self. I have started studying the solar system, imaging the amplitude of our small world, and the giant realm of the galaxy, of everything. If someone says everything, and forgets the majority of what it means to be something, they are not being realistic, if by everything you mean the things of this Earth only, you are forgetting the size of our world. If you looked at the whole Universe on a giant map, our Earth would not even be visible. Concerns of individuals matter in the ethical sense that human needs are important. But you have to consider the sheer magnitude of the stars in everything, every time you think or plant a tree or beg for water, you have to consider the fullness of the Mystery, of Science, of Life.
I’ve been sitting and studying mindfulness and breath for a long time. Breath just goes to a certain point, all of it retained within our biome. There is more to living even than life itself.
I began learning about Halley’s comet, something I had only had heard of before. I did some math and noticed that in 3 and a half or 4 years, Halley’s comet will be as distant as it ever is from our Earth and sun. In 1986, Halley’s comet passed in its orbit as near as it ever gets to us here on Earth.
I began learning about the Voyager 2, something I had barely known about before. Voyager 2 is 11 billion miles away. In November 2018, when Voyager 2 left our solar system.
How can I call my creations poetry or art if they don’t consider but a pea world in the scope of the Universe? To be a poet, I must know the full mystery. To be a human with any claim to consciousness I must have some knowledge beyond this Globe.