Jun
Thoughts on The Day
The day starts at dawn, when the light of the Sun exposes the world to our eyes. That which was shrouded in darkness is now revealed. The Sun illuminates our world once again. In its course through the sky, the Sun’s light grows brighter until Noon. At the middle of the Day it burns brightest, and then its light gradually wanes throughout the afternoon. At Dusk its light wanes and cedes into the Darkness of Night.
Night reveals a whole other set of luminaries. The Moon shines brighter as the Night progresses. Stars dot the sky. As Night moves, so do the Moon and Stars. Unlike the Sun in Daytime, the Moon rises and sets on its own schedule. It may set early, or late, or not at all, depending on the time of the month. The Moon may be a luminous ball or a narrow crescent, or anything in between. Night’s sky has its own schedule. Then comes the dawn, and the Sun, and the Night is no more.
Ages ago, men did not know the nature of the stars. Were they lights in the sky? Was the night sky a cloak, and the stars holes through which the Sun shone? Wise men discerned the movement of Stars and realized they were not simple lights or holes in a cloak of darkness. They learned how the starts circulated through the sky, and that these moving objects were ancient. We used to say that seeing a star evaporates time and space, for you see what ancient man saw. In that instant, you are linked to those who saw it before you. Now we know more, and we realize that our stars are far more distant.
The stars are so far away that it can take their light many years to reach us. For example, Alpha Centauri is a star that is four light years away. A light year is the distance that light can travel in one year. What that means is that the star we see today is light that the star emitted four years ago. You are seeing something that is actually four years old. Other stars are much further. Some are thousands or millions or even billions of light years away.
When you see starts, you are connected with the very instant they released their light. You are connected with an event that is distant in both the past and in distance. That moment connects you with events that happened millions of years ago and billions of miles away. Those starts might not even be there today, and they are most certainly not in the place where you see them. They have moved or they are gone. Perhaps something else is in their place. What you see now is millions of years old and billions of miles distant. By seeing it, the time and space between you and them evaporates. You are touching a thing so vastly distant in time and place, yet it is here for your to see with your own eyes.
The Gods can work in such enormity. What of you and me? We see that the Stars and Sun and Moon interact, and that they have the enormity of time and space. By comparison, even the greatest man is small. Even the smallest man is part of it all. Just as the vastness affects the small, so the small affects the vastness. His affect may not be felt today or tomorrow or for thousand years, but it will eventually be noted. One broken twig, one misplaced morsel of food, one word can alter everything.
All things will inevitably affect and be affected by all other things. The interrelated nature of life is obvious if you only look. Nothing lives in a vacuum in the natural world. Even the recluse and hermit interact with the world.
