A Time of Faint Stars

Why does matter gather into clusters of particles, streams of liquid, and clouds of fog?

Like drops of rain on a windowpane, it seems that no one drop stays alone for very long if there are others nearby.

No one was around to see how elementary particles came together to form stars, galaxies, and galactic clouds. But looking at the outcome, it appears that from the very beginning of this universe, if there was ever a time when the cosmos was a uniformly distributed field of particles, a force was present that drew like toward like. As with the wave/particle theory (where a stream of light has the properties of both a wave and a particle–but those two ways of looking cannot be engaged at the same time), it seems that when we imagine how the galaxies formed, we can choose to envision that gravity drew particles, and then clumps of particles, towards each other, because each particle and clump was an individual node with its own force of attraction. Or, we can choose instead to envision a fluid dynamic where drops are carried along within waves in an ocean that has no shore.

When enough matter comes together, the form of the resulting union determines whether we call it air, water, light or earth. If it’s earth, then gravity will outweigh the fluid movement of waves that predominate in streams of light, water and air.

In the unbounded fields of the cosmos, galactic clouds of gas and galaxies have rotational momentums that keep them orbiting, travelling and engaged in a slow dance with one another through space and time. This dance suggests an image of waves of energy in fluid movement. However, when the integrity of galaxies–in which dance partners embrace and steady one another–ceases to express the guiding spirit of harmony, then a single entity (a black hole) can be born, which pulls everything in the environment towards itself. This gigantic, rogue particle has then broken loose from the community of waves riding across the cosmic ocean, and perhaps foreshadows an eventual end for our present universe.

When the weight and obsessive nature of the material realm squeezes out the sacred balance of diversity, like blood from a stone—then a trap has been set that threatens the death of cosmic harmony, personal autonomy, and democracy; depending on whether we are looking at the cosmos, the individual, or society.

As an individual, my concerns naturally, and also habitually, turn towards my personal life and to the issues that I feel impact me and my own small world: such things as personal health, security, and comfort–with some social responsibility stirred in. At the same time, I find myself increasingly turning toward the momentum of the society in which I live, as my personal issues feel already looked after well enough and/or have proven beyond my ability to affect much.

At this present juncture in the life of the planet, in addition to my own aging perspective becoming less robust, the long consensus that has preserved collaboration (through international organizations and national commitments), and which embodies a belief that working together for common benefit is an important component in any sustainable world order and necessary for human self-respect–is breaking down.

Meanwhile global/cosmic images, through religious teaching, quantum physics, and awareness of personal mortality, can provide a starting point for us to explore our notions of a personal self, or soul, and whether making ourselves so central to the vastness in which we have appeared is not the equivalent of a particle or clump of particles claiming to be the center of the cosmos.

The saying that “Youth is wasted on the young”, no longer feels very pertinent to what is happening in our society. As long as elders in position of power keep crawling into narrowly conceived visions of their own personal security and advantage, then the young are better off guiding themselves. But while we are still young, we haven’t yet had the chance to develop the kind of wisdom that tradition attributes to elders. That’s why when we encounter another voice—in a piece of writing or in the presence of someone who shows up in our life—who understands us better than we understand ourselves, we naturally sit up and take notice.

I hope that some of the young people in our world are able to contact elders, or other young people, who embody personal responsibility for our world, and that the arrival of such a person in their lives will awaken something in short supply in the public chambers of our society. To truly learn from the understanding and wisdom that another person embodies, we have to put this borrowed wisdom to use in our own life.

How inspiring that many young people are working on new ways or are reviving old ways of producing and using what life offers; alternatives that hold hope for long term restoration of the natural world that our extractive economies have so profoundly damaged. I am just an observer on the edges of this active restoration of our society and the natural world, but I draw hope for the world knowing that it exists. I do this observing from the comfortable distance of my memories and my own projects.

I don’t know if the ways I experience my familiar memories, concerns and anticipations is common, but they are an almost constant stream. They reflect past experiences, worries about what is going to happen next and misgivings about how I have interacted with others recently or long ago. All that seems understandable enough. After all I am living a life in which my current situation seems to have been established by what has happened in the past, so how can I be in touch with that past if I don’t remember it? And how can I prepare for what is coming up in the near or distant future if I don’t feel the weight of what is at stake, as expressed in worries about possibilities as I see them. And if I don’t remember my missteps in the past, and how they made me feel, then how can I behave more appropriately going forward?

What I would like to change is not how much or what I remember, but how little I’ve been able to learn about myself and the world I live in from this repeating carrousel of memories, fantasies, and anxious anticipations of what is waiting around the corner. This stream of thought and emotion resembles a meteor shower that lights up the night sky but never reaches the ground.

Surely there is a better use for this amazing capacity to think, feel, remember and anticipate than to be a passive receiver that plays the same songs and sound bites over and over.

Now that I’ve decided to review my life in the only way I know how—by writing about it—I’ve begun to notice that my remembered experiences tend to cohere into phases, times and places (rather like the clumps of matter in the early creation of a new universe), each with a felt presence that can come alive when I peer into them with fresh interest.

The danger is that, especially with the incidents and situations about which I have already written, I will fall into a story that has already been wrapped up and delivered. So, one of my tasks will be to come upon those past times from a different direction. And a good starting point may be to delve into the fact that I am not the same person who lived through those remembered times; and I am also not the same person who has already written about them.

Perhaps when both the source and the mouth of a river evolves with time, the flow of life being remembered can come alive with fresh understanding.