Whenever I catch myself thinking about Carl Sagan, I find that my mind always offers up the same picture: Pale Blue Dot.
Then, as I observe that mental image, emotions, and questions start to arise.
At first, a sort of murky mixture froths, somewhere, deep inside of me.
Fear of the immense darkness that enfolds us.
The anxiety of the unpredictability that is in the center of our way of existence.
Wonder.
Uninvited, yet present, melancholy.
Sadness about some missed kiss, never to happen again.
Unuttered love.
Excitement about the future.
Will we get to experience the future?
Will we get to express what our souls love deeply, whom they love truly?
Why do we love?
Why have we lost so much?
How much more will we lose?
And then, the questionnaire slowly sinks into the darkness, the mind settles, and the water clears.
I stare into a mirror.
Like a drop of morning dew, the Earth stares back at me.
It is then that a deep knowing occurs. And, it is not in the form of thought, nor the tear of fright.
It is of no form, but rather, of being.
I am.
I am, not because I am separate, but because I am part of.
Life.
On February 14th, 1990, as Voyager 1 was leaving the Solar System, at the request of Carl Sagan, NASA commanded the probe to turn its camera around and take one last photograph of Earth.
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor, and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."
Now, I would so gently ask you, reader, to sit for a moment with this picture – not thinking, not questioning, and not doubting.
Just, stand in stillness with a picture of Earth, a picture of our home, a picture of life – a speck of dust in the vastness of the universe.
Just be.
For it is in being that truth resides.
We become so lost in the patterns of our thinking minds, that we forget about our true nature.
We know so much about life, yet we forget about the fact that we are all it.
We are created by the same forces, and we are formed by the same elements.
As the stars are.
As the universe is.
So are we.
So is everything.
We know so much about life, but still, the unknown remains greater.
Much, much greater.
And far beyond our understanding.
Carl Sagan (1934-1996) was nicknamed "The Astronomer of the People" for he had a unique way of bringing the Universe closer to the “ordinary person”.
As a child, he found out that each star in the sky is a distant sun, and that discovery paved his path in life.
He dedicated himself completely to his questions about life in the cosmos, and by doing so, he was able to reveal some of our great mysteries.
His curiosity and research helped us understand the high temperatures on Venus (a massive greenhouse effect), the reddish haze on Titan (complex organic molecules), and the seasonal changes on Mars (windblown dust).
“Cosmos”, his television show, was one of the most-watched shows in the history of television.
He wrote many books, and hundreds of articles, and was among the first to determine that life on Mars could have existed.
One of those books is “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”, wonderfully written by Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan, in which they have so simply accomplished to put into words the connectedness between us, human beings, and all other beings - all beings that are here now, and all those that had to die, for life on Earth to continue to flourish.
“We human beings are like a newborn baby left on a doorstep, with no note explaining who it is, where it came from, what hereditary cargo of attributes and disabilities it might be carrying, or who its antecedents might be. We long to see the orphan’s file.”
No one is going to do the exploration for us.
We have to do it ourselves.
Sagan believed that understanding only this planet, or, only this life, would limit us immensely, and I believe that the exploration of only one’s self is not enough to understand one’s self.
We have to explore ourselves, yes, but not as separate from others, and specifically not as separate from the universe.
The journey starts within.
It twists and turns, uncovering little pieces of the puzzle.
And when we have done all the piecing together, we find out that our puzzle is just a piece of another, greater puzzle.
But for us to discover the mystery, or the truth behind it, we have to keep exploring.
And exploration requires spaciousness.
It requires openness in mind and heart, and it requires honesty.
If we are honest, we can accept that, in the vastness of existence, we, human beings, and our little blue world, have been here very, very shortly.
As short as a breath.
Or a stolen kiss.
And what we have learned so far, is only a fraction of our great mystery.
If by any chance, something along the way of our evolution has gone differently, our civilization would not have come to be.
Or, it would have, but it would not have been the same.
We do not know, for we have not the needed information to determine that.
The fact that we are here now, as we are, is a wonderful thing.
One not deserving of the insignificance we tend to label it with.
For we do not know what tomorrow will bring.
It’s part of the unknown.
This is why we should always, always, come into the present moment.
Coming into the present moment is like wiping the fog off a dimmed window.
Without the fog, we can see clearly.
But we have to, first, be aware of the existence of the fog.
So that we can overcome it.
Transcend it.
So, let us stop, each day, just for a moment, and observe: all around us, all inside of us, is in constant movement - as the Earth is, as the Sun is, as the Moon is, as the Universe is.
Flowing, expanding, growing.
Let us give ourselves space to move: explore, grow, and learn about who we truly are.
Each and every being that is part of life is a whole Universe in a slightly different form from all other forms that are, all others that were, and all those others, that will come into being.
And yet, the peril, and without a doubt, the gift, of our being here now, is the notion of death’s imminence.
That alone should make us treat ourselves, each other, and our world, with more kindness, more love, and more patience.
If we are not able to do that for each other, what kind of world are we going to leave to the children?
Who are we?
The Golden Record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk that was sent onboard Voyager 1 and 2, was created to contain sounds, images, and music selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.
Carl Sagan and his collaborators, selected 115 images and many different natural sounds - such as those of wind, rain, speech, a kiss, birds, dogs, a mother, and a child.
They also added spoken greetings in 55 languages, some of our world’s greatest music, and written messages from then-President Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Waldheim.
A record of hope.
Hope, that someone out there, might come into contact with it and understand that we were here.
We loved.
We kissed.
We laughed, and we wept.
Winds played with our hair and rain made our skin wet, and our soil fertile.
We created, and destroyed.
We lost, and we grieved.
We sang, and we danced.
We lived, and we died.
And we did all of that, on this beautiful, and immensely powerful Blue Earth.
If you are reading this, know that you are very, very special.
And not special in a sort of arrogant way, rather, special, in the most natural way of being.
There is no one like you - like us - that we know of.
We, terrestrial beings, alive here, today, are unique, as is the Earth on which we live.
Our lives might be minuscular, compared to the immensity of the cosmos, but our greatness lies in our ability to love.
And love transcends all space and time.
Many years from now, when all of us, the Earth, and the Sun have perished, the Golden Record might still be out there, in the darkness.
On it, drifting in the vastness of the cosmos will be the spirit of our civilization and world, preserved, as it was, in a present moment expression.
If we were not here right now, life on Earth would be different.
So, let us try and be grateful for our being here, that is, really, a gift.
Let us express ourselves in our own way, and remain always, in awe of life’s beauty.
May you love deeply, and may you be loved truly.
Yours,
Meri
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