Cygnus

Cygnus, the beloved “Swan” of the ancients.

Cygnus, “The Cross,” beloved symbol of The World of the Cross.

We’re enjoying fabulous weather lately, here on the World of The Cross.  So, hedonistic minions that we are, after all the birthday festivities on August 21st for Joshua Ben Joseph, aka Jesus of Nazareth, aka God the Son, we got ourselves up the ladder and on the roof for a fitting universal desert: a fantastic shower of starlight.

Taking in the Milky Way on a dark, clear night full of gentle summer breeze is a totally underrated experience.  Jaded astronomy wonks will typically tell you that with the naked eye most of us can only distinguish about 2,500 stars under ideal conditions.  What nonsense.  Listen.  The “star clouds”— yes, that’s clouds of trillions of stars— that forms the hazy, “milky” luminosity of the Milky Way is the light of trillions of stars.  That you can actually see it means a few photons of light FROM UNTOLD NUMBERS OF THEM is physically being gathered in your eyeballs.  That’s right bozos and girls, your little wad of gray matter is physically interacting with trillions of light emitting objects that are bazillions of miles away from you.  And you say you don’t believe in a God?  That’s a colossal WTF moment if I’ve ever heard one.

And all those stars are not created equal.  The largest star in our local universe, Antares, is four hundred and fifty times the diameter of our sun and is sixty million times its volume.

Finally, chew on this. Nature is in a limited sense the physical habit of God. And the unmitigated vastness of creation is one of the Creator’s more awesome traits. Trillions of stars have just as much comparative elbow room in our galactic space as a dozen oranges would have if they were floating within the interior of our planet, if it were a hollow globe.  Now realize: current estimates say there are more than 500 BILLION GALAXIES in the universe…  I can’t speak for you;  but me?  I want to see them all.

Awesome photo of the Milky Way and Cygnus the Cross over Iran,
near Mt. Damavand, Courtesy of Babak Tafreshi/TWAN (www.twanight.org)
Click to enlarge.

There is a great and glorious purpose in the march of the universes through space. All of your mortal struggling is not in vain. We are all part of an immense plan, a gigantic enterprise, and it is the vastness of the undertaking that renders it impossible to see very much of it at any one time and during any one life. We are all a part of an eternal project which the Gods are supervising and outworking. The whole marvelous and universal mechanism moves on majestically through space to the music of the meter of the infinite thought and the eternal purpose of the First Great Source and Center.

—The Urantia Book