Awe and Uncertainty

Did you see the moon this evening? Around 7 o'clock, it had an orange shine and it rested gently on a few white clouds. I looked at it for a few minutes, as the wind was picking up. For a few moments, I let myself feel the peace of space.

I love the night sky. There's a certain awe about looking into the great deep beyond and seeing farther away than my little brain can comprehend. I love trying to feel the earth spin and imaging the earth spinning while revolving around the sun, which moves through a galaxy and through the universe. And her I am, just a speck... but within me there are deep and tiny worlds, too. I could be a multiverse for a tiny bacterium. The stars startle me into a long-range perspective.

Emily Dickinson said "I work to drive the awe away, but awe impels the work." The immensity around me can be dizzying, but it can also be centering.

The US is in crisis now. The world order is shifting. I have a hunch things will get worse before they get better. But I have to believe they will get better. Mom says she wonders if they'll get better within her lifetime. I even wonder how they will shift in my remaining years. But this is temporary.

Rome fell. Napoleon met his Waterloo. Ozymandias, in Shelley's poem, shifted from being a heroic statues to just two severed leg statue pieces in the desert sand. Humpty Dumpty cracked. And each time, the world went on.

We are just in this moment of time. This may be the end of the American Era, or just an Error in the American story. This may be the end of the Pax Millenia, or just a blip that will remind us to value cooperation.  Only time will tell.

In this tumult, there will be loss. Pain, hunger, illness, broken bridges, and death...all of it unnecessary. Odysseus lost many of his soldiers, too. And here's where my problem lies:  I can be just a speck and have it not matter, or I can celebrate that each of us is our own universe and we are all interconnected but immense.

Today, many devoted workers lost their jobs. There were so many unmerited layoffs. Families have lost their way of making a living. Park rangers are now wondering if they'll have food on the table next month. Scientists rage at the injustice. For each individual, these policy changes are brutal, and collectively they are even worse.

Part of me wants to use that universe perspective to distance myself from it all, to make the loss feel miniscule. We can be just another country that rises and falls. The peace of alliances like NATO and the UN can give way to a different world order, but it will still be ordered.  Part of me wants to be okay with whatever is.

But another part of me...the writing part of me...says No! In the vastness of the world, this is where I've landed. I could have been anywhere, any time, but somehow I ended up here and now. The people matter. I need to do all I can to make others feel connected.  Wa are not alone.

I wonder if humans are all alone. There's got to be other life out there. What could they teach us? That will be a post for another day.

Tonight, I am going to rest with the not knowing. I will keep translating my asylum papers for people who need help. I will keep calling congresspeople. I will keep writing so that others can connect. I'm going to be endlessly large and invisibly tiny. I'm going to go back outside and gaze a little more at the stars.