Ever
step outside on a clear evening to watch for shooting stars? Or
even just gaze up at the sky?
I’m
always fascinated by the amount of time the light takes to reach
us. A bit mind-boggling to think that in some cases, we can be
seeing light from an object in space that no longer exists. Poof.
Gone. And yet for years to come, its will be making an appearance
in the night sky.
(Really.)
Most
sources list Proxima Centauri as the nearest known star to us.
(I know, I should say excluding the sun, but you knew that so
I didn’t.) Takes four years for its light to reach our planet.
You
know the North Star? More officially it’s called Polaris. (Ready?
Sit down.) Some sources say it takes six-hundred and eighty years
for light from Polaris to reach earth. The War of the Roses began
in 1455… Canterbury Tales from Chaucer, that’s usually
marked around 1387… Henry VIII executed Anne Boleyn in 1536. The
North Star you saw tonight? All of those things happened after
the light you saw left Polaris.
William
Shakespeare. Leonardo da Vinci. Michelangelo. All born after
that light you spotted tonight began its journey from the North
Star to your eyes.
There
are sailors over the course of history that navigated the oceans
using stars that sent off the information they needed to plot
their location centuries before they were born. Imagine what you
would say if I told you to get in the car and start your journey,
because your great great great great (great great great, and I
think great a few more times) grandchildren will be relying on
your arrival in three hundred years to get them to safety.
It’s
a little overwhelming.
People
talk about grasping infinity, and honestly, I think that’s beyond
all of us. People in general operate in a finite scenario. Beginnings
and endings. To try and have a sane perspective on something that
has no beginning, has no ending, all while traversing along on
a planet that’s in the middle of an ongoing sea of ever-expanding
depth, well, good luck.
On
a summer evening, clear sky, they say you can sit back and gaze
into infinity. And, that’s absolutely true. It’s not a static
picture. It’s a view of constant motion that took millions of
years to choreograph and assemble, with the starlight being just
a part of it. Pieces of the show were begun long before any of
us were even a possibility, and the show will continue for far
longer than we’ll be around to witness.
But
that beginning and ending part. That’s what we grasp. We step
outside and we see stars. We see streaks of light cross the sky.
It can be awesome. Harder though is to see it as more than that
evening’s entertainment.
Every
so often though, it does hit me to consider the source of the
light. That it’s not just me. You can feel really large and inspired
in these moments, and at the same time incredibly small and insignificant.
And that’s ok.
Both
are true.
It’s
just a matter of navigating where you are.