the most dangerous place on the most hospitable planet

“Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image)

In a universe we see in sharper focus now, with telescopes pointed out into infinity from orbit, sharpening details reveal places we can only appreciate from afar, places we can never survive in our present vulnerable form, places that can never provide us with air, sustenance, water, and shelter.

Whether any of them can harbor what we know as life, they are so far away, inhospitable but devastatingly beautiful and immense beyond our understanding.

But are we sure there isn’t consciousness, does the All perceive, when we were ejected from the belly button of the universe, as we drifted farther away from the midpoint, colliding, spinning, swerving little motes of dust suspended near the first sparks of stars, burned by them, ejected, changing form and composition, electrons dancing around nuclei becoming atoms and connecting, combining, reacting to become substance, atmosphere, chloroplast, mitochondria, crab, turtle, moss, pterodactyl, coral reef, banana, giraffe, lion’s mane mushroom, oak tree, Fuligo septica, baker, puppy, meadow, salt water, virus, all on Earth, combining and recombining from the beginning to the now, did any One or Multitude or Pantheon see this happen?

How beautiful, all of these complex assortments of intricate systems, the interactions that go on infinitely, interdimensionally, micro and macrocosmically, that our imaginations are far too limited to comprehend their beginnings and trajectories even when we try so hard.

Do we believe hearsay miracles that scribes of kings and prophets carved in clay and stone, or inked on sheets of parchment, papyrus, and paper, but miss everyday miracles like rays of the sun bouncing off the moon, landing in rippling water, the smell of trees perspiring fragrant resin in mid summer, the chattering of tiny birds gathered in the curves and twists of low branches after a storm, the intense yellow blob of slime mold creeping through fallen tree bark and over the garden thyme, the things we can know that give us joy, that bring us in communion with the eternal and the ephemeral? Where is the beginning, did we learn to see eternity rolling out in every direction as far as there is to ever go when we were so small with so much to learn? Did the door close, did an adult say our questions were disrespectful or blasphemous or inappropriate or did they pause and say, “that is an interesting observation, let’s learn more before settling on an answer,” especially if the question was too complex for an adult to explain properly to a child right off the top of their head, did they try?

Oh, but there is no time to slow down for that shit, the special things that take time and nurturing, there is work to toil and spin until one simply can’t anymore, the economy never sleeps. At some point one may have uncomfortable feelings about this, a lunch out disturbed by the 24 hour newsfeed on an enormous tv every day, interruptions on the kitchen radio, a co-worker’s indignation, constant phone notifications, the baffling opinions of people in our lives, nothing ever lets up. One never knows enough, has enough time, has the resources, energy, or will.

There’s the memory of the fear of the bomb someone could drop while across the world bombs rain on people we were taught to fear. Were we never curious enough to expend energy learning about the people our elected leaders malign, who paint them all with the same brush, rationalizing their oppression and destruction? Are we to believe our atrocities are justified, but their atrocities are bestial? Layer upon layer of injustice crumble to the ground burying miracles, the war crimes that are not allowed to be called war crimes mirror ancient prophetic works, the script is dutifully followed and interpreted as though fragmented through a crystal and shot in thousands of directions, each facet illuminating something different, offering so many ways to become mesmorized by a single point of view. People we may have trusted as children will choose to look at a book, ignoring all else, and say “It is tragic, yes, but God wants this.” To shift blame this way for what human beings are clearly doing is obscene and trust when I say to take power this way has generational consequences. In the heart of the military industrial complex where children are massacred in schools on a regular day and our own leaders protect weapons over lives, I beg that anyone with a heart in their body remember that for all who live through this tragic time, there is a future. It will not be kind to those who clung to hatred in a time that desperately needs love.

The most dangerous place on Earth for children is the Holy Land. I can’t stop thinking about it.

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On an up day I probably should walk around the park, but during a slow time so I don’t give anyone the latest round of the “I dunno, the covid test was negative this time, but everyone seems to have the same wretched thing so whatever it is, it’s contagious” malady, or pick up the next one while weakened. The post from a few days ago was edited, scrapped, and re-written after breaking a fever, and it was a pretty rough week. I still feel a little shaky, but I think the fever reset something. I want to get back into things and am excited about the possibility, but also every time I get like this I get a little too giddy about it and forget how to pace. I’ll dance around too much or tackle a project and then it’s lights out. It is so scary to catch something when chronically ill, I am finding. I worried it would not go away, but it seems to be on the way out. The worst seems to have passed with the fever.

I wish everyone thoughtful and peaceful holidays this year, please be kind.

“the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”

— David Graeber, from The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy