pas divin de deux

I have never considered myself to be a good follower. In any type of situation I am exceedingly quick to question and to change things ordained by social convention; in social situations I was never annoyed by doing things differently, not following alpha members in groups - never expecting anyone to follow, just happily doing my own thing. That's why I had no idea what to expect as yesterday I stepped into two dancing classes in pairs, blues and swing dancing. The concepts were not difficult since most of the moves I knew from previous classes in various other dancing styles, but, unlike the styles I was used to, here I would have to follow someone's lead. I did not know if I would manage to do that. And, well, often I did not.

What I did find, however, was that once I trusted that the person knew what they were doing, I found myself perfectly happy to follow. I would then not be trying to get the steps into the music or correct anything. The thing is, it is hard to follow when it is hard to trust your partner, and that may be the exact reason why following has always been a fear factor to me. 

This, many times seems to be a contradiction, given that I am a Christian. Jesus called the disciples to leave all things and follow him. How can I follow Him, that I don't even see physically, when I can't even follow actual people in front of me? As I considered the following business, my mind was driven to piles and piles of verses about submission to Christ, and to God, all things I always had great difficulty in understanding. When I read these verses, the submission I thought of was much closer to an oppressive submission, but I suddenly realised that is not the submission he offers at all. 

The submission he offers is much more of an invitation than a demand. If I may, in my mind it sounds like he is asking us to have this dance with him, we may or may not accept. Unlike the submission to power in fear that we often see, the submission in a dance in pairs is completely different: it is based on trust, on familiarity and in synchrony: all things that develop with time. Once they are learnt, they make what used to be a clashing display of different wants and objectives, what used to be difficult and awkward, suddenly become natural.
One does not stop being one's self in the dance with someone else, but is willing to coordinate in harmony with someone else in a way to produce something even more beautiful than would be done alone. This is the invitation we are presented with, not to be less of ourselves by following, but to be even more, through Christ and the relationship with him. 

At a certain point in the night yesterday, one of the people that took me out to dance said "don't worry about your feet, I'm going to twirl you, and just go with it", and little by little I realised that he knew what he was doing and was perfectly happy to twirl, dance, kick and come back: not having a care in my mind. At one moment when I was twirled, my hand was let go of and I nearly went head on into a pillar - at which he said "I'm sorry! It's my job not to twirl you into a pillar, that was my fault!". After that I was slightly apprehensive - I had to be aware of my surroundings and be careful in my following. I realised I could not follow, and had to change my approach.

The thing is, that doesn't happen in the relationship with God. The longer we are in it, we see he does not fail, that he never twirls us into the pillar. We realise that at no moment he forgets, lets go and lets us run into the world. At no moment we seek to find no hand to hold us. He promised extensively that that hand would be there (Isaiah 41.10). Of course, that doesn't keep us from letting go - but he is willing to help us get up and come back if we want to and carry on in this divine dance that christianity is. And so, with time and effort, more and more we find that we really can 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." (Proverbs 3.5-6)

Sometimes, when dancing, I would forget the key concept of relying; rather than dancing I took up the concept of fencing in which it is preferable to have the lead, and I would try to do so. Sometimes I would get away with it, but most of the time it would be messy, and both myself and the partner stopped understanding what was going on or what our role was; I tried to rely on my own understanding rather than trusting my partner, and it became... well, a mess. I forgot this was not about winning, it was about doing something, producing something good, something blessed, something beautiful: together.

With Jesus, we don't get away with it. We can't control anything. He is quick to bring us back into synchrony and point out that we are not following and remind us all we have to do is keep our eyes on our leader, and be willing to follow. Willing to trust.
Like this, with trust, finding as the dance goes on that he is strong to hold us, we are able to do so much more than we ever could do in a solo, or with an unexperienced partner that is not able to bring out the best in us. The twirls are longer, faster, the jumps are higher, and we learn to mirror him and to be more and more like him: we learn to know him and our feet move swiftly and certainly in the moves that we have been taught.
Like this - nearly counter-intuitively - resigning our own freedom of dancing alone and giving up on trying to learn the dance moves as we wish, we are not less free to dance: the trust allows us to be free, be better, learn and be more and more of ourselves, not less as in an oppressive leadership. 

And if, even with all this, we ever doubt that he can hold us, all we need to remember is the text in Hebrews 1.3 I read this morning and caused me to think of all this: 

"This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God's nature. He holds everything together by what he says - powerful words!" 

So maybe we just have to trust that we are part of 'everything' and he will hold us together - the same way he holds the galaxies, the stars and the planets; the same way he coordinates harmoniously chemical reactions and physiological interactions in these glorious organic miracles. And, when receiving the invitation to this dance, we can be sure to graciously submit our will in hope that his beauty will also be brought to fully alive in this gloriously divine expression of trust, love and harmony. 

Do your research before hugging trees

I must be a horrible, heartless, soulless person. That's the only thing I can think with some of the looks I get upon discussing or being questioned about topics like animal experimentation. 

In 2012, for example, a random group of people broke into a big research lab in Brazil to get out the beagles that were undergoing experimentation. Everyone was talking about it and had something to say about animal experimentation. "Oh, poor beagles. STOP animal experimentation. You scientists are horrible people. You use the animals and then KILL them."

It's very pretty to have this speech, to hug trees and try to save animals and the world - it's quite dramatic going out into the streets with a sign or body painting or whatever to show just HOW MUCH you want to change the world and save animals. But, let's be honest, most of the time the world isn't changed by posters, cliché sentences, and screaming your opinion at the top of your lungs. Actually, lots of the time this sort of thing disturbs me profoundly and I will tell you why. 

Have you ever seen someone do animal experimentation? Getting the animal, handling it for extensive periods of time, having it near you, trying to not give names and not grow attached to it in any way, and then have to sacrifice it... Have you ever seen that? No. Or someone getting a chicken embryo to study development? Seeing the beating heart when opening the egg shell carefully and knowing you are the reason why that heart is going to cease beating? No. You haven't. And you don't know what it feels like. 

People think that we are untouchable in our lab coats and fancy goggles, but we're not, we're human. I've seen scientists talk about how they care for animals, how they support animal shelters in an attempt to relieve their conscience of the fact that they quite often kill animals in the laboratory. I have seen people leave the room in lectures, be sick, nearly faint. It's not pretty, it's not fancy and it is definitely not cold blooded murder: you only know how horrible death is when you see it, but you feel the wait of it when inflicting it with your hands, and it is not a good weight to bear, it is not a weight we were made to bear. 

So, I'm imagining you are thinking "Well, if it's so terrible, then why do you do it? It just proves our point that there should NOT be animal experimentation!". Yes, you are right, there should most definitely not be animal experimentation. The same way there should be no murders, rapes, hunger or disease. BUT, we are in a world with suffering, with disease, and we intend to do something about it in research, and unfortunately our only closest model of your friend's cancer or your acquaintance's parkinson's disease or your grannie's arthritis is alive and is an animal model. We are working on other ways to do these things - cell culture, organ on a chip, all these things are being worked on, but none of them are fully functional yet. Therefore, we have to resort to animal models when the others do not suffice. While you want to promote life by screaming in the streets about how horrible we are, we are working long hours in the laboratory to try to develop a vaccine so that your child will not take ill, and a cure for your family relatives' cancer, parkinson's or alzheimer's. We are trying to change the world and promote life in a silent revolution. 

This finally begins to deconstruct the common scientist stereotype, that we do what we do because we are cold blooded: we do what we do keeping in mind that there is a bigger reason for what we do. Every time I pick up paraphormaldehyd, a scalpel, liquid nitrogen, a pair of scissors and nankin to dye an embryo I tell myself: I'm doing this for a reason. Maybe it's idealistic and naïve of me as an undergrad student, but it's the only way I can get myself to do it. In a way, one might say that because we hate seeing suffering and wrong in the world - because we feel the pain too much - that we inflict pain to stop it. You would be surprised at the number of people who go into research because of relatives with disorders in whatever they are working in. 

Now, defences made, I feel I must state something that may be very impopular, but that for far too many years has bothered me, and that is the fact that I do not know what all the fuss is about most of the time. Some people have very hateful speeches towards science, and I don't really know where that comes from. I do agree, for example, with the fact that animal models should not be used for experimentation in non-fundamental branches of research such as the cosmetic industry. However, when people are fighting so much to save the beagles, I can't help but laugh inwardly about how ridiculous the situation is, many times, for 3 reasons: 

1) People only fight for what they like (aka, think is cute)

When people broke in to the lab in Brazil, they went and they saved all the beagles (ruining YEARS of research) but left the rats and the pigs to die. You don't see anyone doing walks to defend the mosquitoes or cockroaches from insecticides or the sole of anyone's shoe. Although there are vegetarians, many animal lovers are not vegetarians and are not inclined to be in front of a butcher's saying he is a cold blooded killer. So, you just love the fluffy and warm animals but the rest can die (especially if they are tasty)?

2) People have no idea what they are talking about

People get emotional and people get stupid about things. They don't know enough about it, and because it seems to be a noble cause they go for it without thinking. Lots of people praised the beagle incident "oh, they SAVED the beagles!". Guys, the beagles were bred in certain conditions so as to have NO IMMUNITY. Three months later, the 'free beagles' all died. Please, get your facts straight before lifting up your posters and breaking in and destroying very expensive lab equipment.
Something else under this that I cannot go on without mentioning is the recent measles outbreak and the return of several diseases which should have been eradicated by now, but are not because of people who refuse to vaccinate their children.  Because of not searching for reliable sources and just believing any non-scientific nonsense, they are putting their children and other people who cannot be vaccinated due to health conditions at risk. This is why I highlight HOW important it is to get your facts straight and look for RELIABLE sources of information. 

3) Even the most energetic people against it have benefited from it

Every person picking up a poster, sign or talking for greenpeace or WWF or whatever non-governmental organisation, has in some way benefited from animal experimentation. Be it from direct use of medication and cosmetics which were tested on animals (or would you really refuse to undergo antibiotic treatment with an infection that could kill you in 2 days because a number of rats were killed in testing it?), or from indirect benefits like studies about infection that led doctors to use latex gloves, wash hands, use 70% alcohol and antibacterial soap. If you want to go back to living like there is no science or medicine, go for it. I'm not inclined to be there to see the bubonic plague coming back the same way measles is coming back because of recent anti-vaccers.

In a nutshell, I do not want to insult anyone or offend anyone; what I'm trying to say is that, yes, animal experimentation is something to be used with great care, and death (even of animals) is not something to be taken lightly, but our scientific and technological development is not ready to have it completely ruled out (though we are working hard towards it). However, whenever emotional involvement takes away one's better judgement and, therefore, makes facts and arguments disposable, caution must be taken even in apparently good causes: if you just think what everyone thinks, you aren't thinking at all. So, be you in favour or against animals, a vegetarian or a carnivore, let's be wise in pointing fingers and accusing anyone of being a cold blooded killer. We don't live in a perfect world, and therefore, we are not perfect - but let us work towards making it a better place, starting with listening and being loving, even towards the freaks in the lab coats. 

A house divided in itself

Soldiers hiding in trenches of self,
What in the world have we come to be?
Hatred feeds off of desire for wealth
Is there no end to the beloved’s tyranny?

In despair the tears burn like fire
Hearts bombed in horrid explosion
Lonely, hopeless, trapped in barbed wire
Fearful of clicking of slightest emotion

Words are more deadly than knives
Deceitful lips cut deeper than steel
Merciless, shred the soul in lies
Severing any surviving desire to feel

Lips shooting curses paradoxically bless
Maybe it is love’s deepest irony:
Should it come from hands that caress
The wounds that are most deadly

A broken heart, a wound so fatal
Inflicted only by most unlikely enemy
Love is murdered in its very cradle
When hatred erupts within family

 
(Not fussy about the music, but the video is well worth watching until the very end)

learning to love

"I'm really good at Ordinary Differential Equations, I just got straight As, but I hate it."

Said no human, EVER.

Upon discussing with other people things that they like - especially when it has something to do with studying - very seldom will people love doing something they are really terrible at, or hate something they are really (really) good at. Of course, you have your odd exceptions both ways, but most of the time someone passionate about mathematics will be good at mathematics, and a teacher who loves teaching will... well, be good at teaching. This rather plain thought made me overthink of the things we love.
For the purpose of this text, I will use my turbulent love/hate relationship with mathematics to explain my point. I used to enjoy math, and was actually good at it for a few years. When I started having trouble with it, I had some private classes and ended up learning, while in second grade, things that would only be given in fourth grade. Things moved along smoothly, sometimes I would get frustrated, but then I'd understand it and I'd relearn to like it.
However, as the subjects progressed - and I had no more private teacher to help me - my profound hatred that seemed to come from my very soul increased, and I found it heartbreaking how one could spend so much time trying to understand something, and still just get wrong answers. I felt it was a waste of time and found it to be very stupid that I have to learn something my brain just didn't seem built to do.
When I was near my final year, I had to get some help a few times to get myself ready for my exams to enter universities. The situation was critical. I got two people to teach me some topics that I was exceptionally bad at and finally learnt them, and remember to this day how my heart leaped in joy while sitting the exam to go into the best university in São Paulo and found one of the things I hated, but learnt and eventually learned to like, was in the exam. I had learnt to love it because I learnt to understand it.
That often happens with people.
Whenever we meet someone for the first time, the temptation in labelling this person in your mind until the end of time is very, very real. The irrational attribution of a title based on a single first impression, absent of thought, investigation, observation or actual interaction might come easily to mind, especially when there is something about the person that makes them different from you - negative labels fly to people you find it hard to relate to. They can be either too quiet or too loud, or too needy, or too isolated, too friendly, too rude, anything at all.
However, once you take the time to talk to the person - get to know about their story, where they come from, what's their favourite colour (ok, maybe not that, but you get the point), hear their ambitions in life, you start to understand them as more than a label: they become a human being. Just like you.
You start to understand not just what your impressions were, but things that might motivate or explain certain traits. Quirks you found were extremely annoying and inexplainable suddenly make sense. And suddenly, upon this recognition, upon rational enlightenment and comprehension, you have learnt to love the other; in the 2,000 year old words once said, you learnt to love your neighbour.
So when people say that they HATE someone, I can't help but think they aren't just saying they have cross feelings towards someone, but that they simply don't understand someone. Maybe because of a lack of opportunity or effort, that person is just a great big question mark - and, well, for curious human beings as we are, we don't like question marks without answers. Like with math, it's easier to just decide we don't like it because we're not good at understanding that.
Upon further ponderation on the matter, I painfully realised this was not an original idea at all. Poets, writers and preachers have come across this same concept.
It is mentioned by L.M. Montgomery in a quote I have failed to reencounter precisely, but it says something like:

"We only hate that which we do not understand" 

L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea 

And going from the happy small universe in Avonlea to futuristic science fiction into Ender's Game, we have:

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”
- Orson Scott, Ender's game

Ok, so we don't need to think of enemies and destruction, but I think you get the point I'm trying to get across: understanding someone may be a key factor in learning to love them. 

While thinking of love and knowing, this brought me back to 1 John 4. 

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
- 1 John 4.8, NIV

I can already imagine: "Now, so you were saying we have to know other people to learn to love them, and now you're saying that to love someone we need to know God? What does one thing have to do with another?!" Here's the thing, if God is the creator of all things, he is also the creator of all people and, therefore, understands every inch and ounce of them - so, ultimately, he is the one able to love absolutely every person scattered throughout space and time. And... if we truly get to know him, spend time with him, we learn to understand him and therefore, love him. And it is when we understand him, that we are able to start to understand others under this new light: that every human being has a intrinsic value, a uniqueness, a lovely soul. And this enables us to love much more powerfully, because it allows us to know them even before a first word is exchanged. We learn to see this intrinsic value even before we know they exist: we learn everyone is a fully complex and eternal soul, and just because of that they already are worthy of being loved. Any other knowledge after that, just adds onto the love!

So, after my rather disorganised line of thought, ultimately, what I'm trying to say here is that while we do not understand man kind in its natural value, and while we are not open to try to understand one another, we will necessarily fail in any endeavour to love. While we try to fit people into our expectations, into our standards, we will be loving ourselves more than anything else. We do not need to necessarily agree with all of it anymore than I have to agree with maths that '+' be the symbol of summing, as long as I understand what maths means by '+' and respond accordingly to it. Maybe if we just give each other a chance, some time, some effort... maybe then this love can be made complete in us. And just how wonderful it is to learn to love because we have been loved first. 

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”
- Timothy Keller, The meaning of marriage

Call each thing by its rightful name

There is this word we have in portuguese that scholars claim cannot be translated into any other language, and peculiarly, it is being away from Brazil (and from portuguese) that I seem to be coming to understand it and all it's meaning - and learning the importance of rightful words altogether. As many words in portuguese, it is not a precise or practical concept, but subjective and emotional -  I think that says enough about the brazillian culture on it's own-, and we call it saudade.
We can use it in a number of constructions, we can say that we are feeling saudades, or we can say we are with saudades. Overall, it refers to the feeling of longing when apart from something or someone, the longing to be reunited. Personally, I love particularly when the construction used is "estou com saudades" (I am with saudades), simply because it makes it sound like Saudades is someone, and sometimes it does feel like that.  When you really, really miss someone or something, it's like you have this gloomy shadow hanging above you, weighing your heart down and darkening your thoughts to an extent you many times doubt is healthy. It is like someone that follows you around constantly reminding you that you are away from the one you have saudades of.
Many people claim that it is like saying you miss something/someone, but I don't think it's exactly the same, and I'll tell you why. Suppose you had a piece of furniture in your room all your life and someday, for whatever reason, had to get rid of it. There are a few ways you will feel about this, one of them is you miss it in the sense you have the feeling something is missing just because it used to be there every day, or you can have saudades and long to have that piece of furniture back. You see how it's different?
But there is one thing about brazillians, and that is that we tend to throw big words and big gestures around carelessly. For example, when you meet someone - even if for the first time - before you know it, they are hugging and kissing you, and with what we call 'silly hands' all over you like you have known each other for AGES. It's rather crazy, because kissing and hugging are a big deal to other cultures - and, well, to me too - and yet they are equally distributed to random strangers and to long missed friends with no distinction whatsoever. Though many people like this 'friendliness', to me it sounds as absurd as wearing a ball gown every single day: yes, ball gowns are nice, and they are meant to be enjoyed, but when you wear something every day it gets old, crumpled, stained, and you no longer have something as special as you would want when, say, going to a ball.
Sometimes people will even use saudades unrequitedly; many times they will say they feel saudades when, in fact, all they do feel is that they miss you, or feel the distance, or feel like it would be nice to just know where you are in life - though not with the rational decision that that might be a good idea ever DREAMING of reaching their subjective emotions.
However much I would love to be able to say that is restricted solely to one culture, it is with great unease I admit that though we, as brazillians, are very good at it, we are not alone in this painful incorrect use of language. Many words have become tattered, used and very much worthless along the years from far too much use.
The word once used to describe something awe-inspiring like God in the bible - Awesome - is currently used to describe a sandwich or a T-shirt. Love, so abundant in meaning, in fullness, in importance is ridiculously spat out to say that you love a pair of shoes or a new pop song (a tune that I will be very much impressed if it lasts on people's minds for more than 2 weeks).
We have become illiterate fools in our speech, for where once could describe with intensity and accuracy, we now fail to save words and guard them to only use them when it is requited and wise, for that matter. I am unsure if this occurs because we have incresed the value attributed to things like a sandwhich or a pair of shoes, or if we have brought down our feelings to the level of things and therefore brought down the weight of these words. Maybe we just forgot the definitions, or just have reduced our vocabulary. Whatever the reason is, it makes me think of how many misunderstandings in feeling and in communication occur from such careless errors.

River flows in you

"So. Water. We're made of water"

My friend said in a joking tone, trying to change the topic under discussion at the table since none of us knew much about law. Attaining to my usual and comfortable facts due to my tiredness to think, I just laughed and said "Well, technically about 70% of us is made of it anyway."
The thing is, at the time I didn't remember, but later, as I walked by the River Magical Mirrors Road, as I called it (since it sounds much better than just "Riverside path"), I struggled with a few thoughts and brought to mind a quote I read recently:

"If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than a canal. For a canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus communicates, without loss to itself, its superabundant water. In the church today, we have many canals, few reservoirs."
- Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Maybe we are made of water, not only our literal 70%, but also ourselves in an entire metaphorical way. I wondered: what am I? A reservoir? A canal? An ocean, endlessly indecisive about it's boundaries? Or a still glimmering lake, safe and predictable?
I pondered about the quote, and I may be a fool for doing so, but I disagreed with it - I do not believe we were intended to be a reservoir in the first place. From what I understand in the statement, we would have to be filled, complete, and wise before doing anything, before overflowing, teaching and helping, and, honestly, I don't feel we can ever reach such a level. Therefore, we would be waiting on a day never to come to begin to overflow.
In a more practical sense, I think we are much more like rivers at present. At a given moment, a spring comes up in us, surfacing clean water that can sustain life, and begins to dig its way in through the dust and mud of a harsh world. We reflect to some extent the reality surrounding us, and may or may not reveal all of the depth - or lack thereof - that we have: we can be dull, dark, unrevealing and simply reflect thoughtlessly our surroundings, or we can purely be transparent, honest and let the light shine through us revealing quite obviously how deeply we go.
We make our way, guarded and guided by obstacles in our path and carve our markings into the world - collecting bits and pieces of where we pass, carrying that with us changing and being changed during the course of our flow, condemned to,  in order to make a difference and go somewhere, never be able to go back to being exactly the same as we once was. The specs of dust we collect here, will not be the same as the ones we collect there. In different parts of our flow we may have been purer, others polluted, but we still can be purified during our course (very mercifully for São Paulo's Rio Tietê). We may become drier at times, and flow timidly, but the little we have we share with the life we try to sustain. We may very well overflow - and sometimes may even cause a hazard because of it.
We carry on, and the people and events we pass by will change us forever, and they may accompany us for a bit - rivers may cross, rivers may fuse together, and rivers may even, even though meeting, never mix (as happens with the Amazonian Meetings of the water in the Rio Negro). Or these rivers may mix and become one, or may even separate after flowing together for a considerable time. No one can tell.
We flow and plunder on into oceans, oceans that never fill (Ec. 1.7) and oceans in which we can get lost. I like to think the ocean towards which I am flowing is the infinite ocean, an ocean of love and eternity, an ocean in which we find what we were searching for when plundering through the mud, an ocean that welcomes us and gives us meaning... An ocean in which we lose ourselves in order to be found. An ocean in which we resign our power of choice in our rout in order to be a part of something much, much bigger.

pluriverses

The streets were silent as I walked back home, and my footsteps echoed like a small frail heartbeat on the concrete. Due to not feeling perfectly well, greatly due to tiredness, I resorted to what I usually do on that occasion: putting one foot ahead of the next steadily and only cross streets when the light is green for me (something, I shamefully must admit, am accounted guilty for not doing so often).

However, my focus was robbed in a few moments and my eyes fled away from the course I had set briefly upon encountering from the corner of my eye a bright star that accompanied me to my left, but I just let it be, there in the sky. It was only upon the comfort of arriving to my street I granted my dizzy self the right to look up - after all, I was nearly home.

I looked up to find that there were several little bits and pieces of archaic light shining back at me, forgotten up in the sky. As I arrived in front of my flat, I forgot all about my concerns, about the numbing cold, about everything. I took my hat off - in a practical sense, it improved my view, but my more poetical self says it might have been in some sort of reverence to the largeness of the universe, to the ancient light shining testimony to our own little entropy coming down upon us from stars, reflected off of planets, travelling through the vastness of the cosmos, into earth’s atmosphere, through the lens of my glasses to hit my retina where my specialised neurones quickly collected this processing it abstractly through electrical impulses which traveled across my brain all the way to my occipital lobe, from where the information would be silently distributed to millions and millions of neurones in different regions causing me to consider and think of what I saw.

My mind went in a million directions, maybe as numerous as the stars itself.

I thought of it rationally, the rudimentary and self taught astronomy and astrophysics I have had access to in recent years. I thought of a metaphor I once came up with and thought was wonderfully creative - and maybe it was so for an 8 year old - that ‘friends are like stars, even if you could see them, they were always there’. I thought of how funny it is that we are stardust which can, ultimately, appreciate itself whenever appreciating the night sky. I thought of how maybe, just maybe if even for just a bit we all took a moment to reverently take our hats of, strip ourselves of little daily concerns that seem so extraordinarily troublesome, forget things that seem vastly important in our lives and just looked up to see how small we are - both before space and time - we would realise how very small both ourselves and our concerns are. But, at the same time, see that we are also gloriously significant: able to translate all these dots of light into metaphors, mathematical formulations, poems, songs, and beautiful words to one another.

Looking up reminded me of our paradox as humans: we are surprisingly intricate and complex - holding within us each a unique entire universe - and yet, we can also be extraordinarily futile and useless to the universe: if we cease to exist, it will carry on perfectly fine. We think we are part of the beauty, of the view - but we are just silent spectators in awe, given a chance to see beauty and love in a world we will never, ultimately, belong to. At the end of the day, in an equally glorious and fearsome way, we are everything, and we are nothing.



I heard some footsteps approaching, and suddenly became aware of the fact I had no idea how long I stood by the river looking up at the ancient skies: the world swallowed me up once again into it’s cares, but with a certain sense of wonder and of peace. Maybe the world, cosmos, beauty will carry on even in my absence - but none of that harsh reality can erase the wonder and exquisite honour we have in being a little piece assisting in the functioning in this vastly complex organic, ever changing machinery that is the universe. Due to this ultimate dynamic in it’s functioning, we are comforted knowing, that even if this machinery continues to work, we have a chance to allow it to never work in the exact same way - but it’s in our hands the choice as to the changes we leave, if we break other pieces, or if we help fix them.

Or, then again, I may just be spending FAR too much time with Anne of Green Gables.