How Beautiful Is That?

Maybe this is old news.  I mean, I know others have pointed this out long ago... Carl Sagan: "We are star stuff."  Joni Mitchell: "We are stardust."  But I just love this from Kevin Kelly...

"We are all collected stardust. And by a most elegant and remarkable transformation, our starstuff is capable of looking into the night sky to perceive other stars shining. They seem remote and distant, but we are really very close to them no matter how many lightyears away. All that we see of each other was born in a star. How beautiful is that?"


Yes,  we are born in a star.  That's better than any other origin story you can come up with.  We live in an amazing, awe-inspiring and confounding place, and our lives are amazing, awe-inspiring and confounding too.


We were at the lakefront yesterday, the water was calm, the light reflected off the surface of the water, and there were more shades of color than one could count.  The water and sky mirrored and reflected each other.  We stood on sand, there were little pebbles, old shells, we were surrounded by big, hulking rocks.  Sometimes the simple things, if we really "see" them can bowl us over.


Everything had a hushed, expectant quality.  Everything so simple and elegant.


I don't think there is any contradiction between a desire to embrace the scientific paradigm, in order to investigate our universe and ourselves, and at the same time, honoring the mystical nature of everything we see, and know, and don't know too.