How often have you stood there, out in the frosty air of an early autumn morning when the sun has not quite yet breached the horizon, and found your breath catch in your chest at the crisp clarity of the stars?
Maybe it’s just me, but they seem to hang lower in the cold air; shine brighter. They pull me in and make my head spin as I feel my perspective start to shift. Slowly it as if the world takes on its proper shape around me. The ground beneath my feet becomes a planet (not the grass of my front yard) even if I can’t see it I start to feel the curve of the sky as it wraps around the earth. It is then that everything shifts into place; planet, space, stars. The Earth finally slips into its niche in the nighttime sky; a sky that is suddenly more than just pretty pinpricks of light and becomes a vast web of life and possibilities.
Yes, I know, I wasn’t on some sort of cosmic quest when I stepped outside this morning. I wasn’t even in a philosophical let alone cosmic kind of mood. Heck, I hadn’t even had my first coffee of the day. I was just taking out the trash, but OH what an incredible feeling!
I’ve had friends, family members even who say that while they’ve had this sort of perspective shift that it depresses them instead of filling them with wonder. “It makes me feel insignificant” one told me. He said that it depressed him because it pulled him out of his place at the center of things and showed him just how little he really mattered in the grand scheme of things. But you know what? He couldn’t have been more wrong.
It isn’t that you are no longer at the center of your universe (you will always be at the center of your own universe; of your own perspective on the world), it is that you finally realize just how big of a part you DO play in the grand scheme of things. Because you see, there is no center to the universe. Are there centers of solar systems? Most certainly there are. Are there centers to galaxies? Of course there are. But the universe – being immeasurable – has no verifiable center. It is reliant instead on the interconnectedness of all of the systems – on each galaxy and solar system and planet and comet; every black hole and white hole and wormhole being precisely what it is and precisely where it is in order for the universe to be what it is.
So too are we a part of all that is. By being precisely who and what we are we become a part of the interconnected web that weaves the entire universe together; and without you in it the universe would be a different place entirely.
Yes, I understand that people and animals and plants and birds die every day and that the universe continues to exist. But we’re not just talking about physical bodies now are we? We’re talking about the energy that is YOU. No matter what shape you take – no matter what side of Einstein’s E=Mc2 you fall on, YOU are still a part of this universe and your place and importance in it are assured.
So don’t be intimidated by the stars. Don’t let societal expectations and definitions determine how significant (or insignificant) you think you are. Go ahead, walk outside tomorrow morning and let yourself fall into the stars; feel your perspective shift as everything falls into place and feel where you truly belong in the grand scheme of things. You may want to hold onto something though, because the shift in focus can make you dizzy with possibility.
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