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talonkarrdeIf I still my breathing, I think I'll be able to hear beyond the lub-dub of my heart. I take a breath and hold it and imagine the quiet, soft whoosh as blood courses through my veins and arteries. It is an ebb and flow of a tide not controlled by the brilliant moon above me, one that is more blindingly clear than I've ever seen.
The artificial silence is broken by nothing but myself and for a mad moment, I'm tempted to expose myself to the universe, to listen to the sounds of distant stars living and dying. I want to see if I can feel the radio waves as they pass from the Earth to the heavens, and perhaps even hear a response back from thousands of light-years away. My hand creeps upwards, but I exhale and the hiss brings me back.
Then I look down, and thoughts of the universe escape me as my mind is captured by the Earth below. I sigh, a sigh shared with the few who have come before and the many that will come after. There are pictures of this sight, of course, but pictures do not, and will never, do it justice. There are movies that play in science theatres, but they are only pale reflections of the vista that fills my view.
Take the stars you see in the night sky and condense them onto a schoolboy's map; it will start to approximate the sea of lights that paint the coast below me. They are public libraries and personal houses and towering skyscrapers — they are beacons of life, of humanity as a whole; they say We are Here and This is What We Made. I see cities that house millions of people, each person living an individual life full of joy and sorrow and fear and friendship, all condensed down to a single, brilliant point of light.
In this moment I understand both why some people believe and why others do not. For who could doubt the brushstrokes of a greater hand than our own in creating this piece of art, this painting made by billions of lives who would never know how their work would look when taken together? And yet, after seeing this view, who could steal credit away from the hard work and imagination of builders and dreamers and parents and children that created these homes and histories, brick by brick, idea by idea?
I reach out futilely to touch the touch this affirmation of our existence and I wonder if there is someone who has done it for real, a being who strides between galaxies and observes the universe as it unfolds. I wonder if he has reached out to touch a particularly concentrated area of light and if millions of people sighed quietly in their dreams as a benevolent presence passed over.
I could die many times over in the time it would take me to consider all of the ifs that confront me as I watch down from the heavens, but I am spared.
The sun breaks over the edge of the Earth.
Dawn spreads, a rushing wave of light that turns the monochrome of the night earth into the azure oceans, the emerald forests, the topaz deserts, and the brilliant white snowscapes of the poles and the mountains between. The lights of the night are swallowed by the colors of the sun, and I draw breath quickly for fear of forgetting to do so later.
And as I watch millions of unseen lives yawn and stretch and start their lives, never knowing that someone is watching them and loving them more than any stranger has before, I understand something else.
I am part of a brotherhood with the others that have been here, beyond the stratosphere, watching a sunrise unlike any other; it changes how I see you and me, us and them. We are given an almost omniscient moment to view humanity from a higher viewpoint, and it is a moment that erases the artificial barriers that we erect between us.
From space, there is only life, and the miracle of this planet that sustains us.
The artificial silence is broken by nothing but myself and for a mad moment, I'm tempted to expose myself to the universe, to listen to the sounds of distant stars living and dying. I want to see if I can feel the radio waves as they pass from the Earth to the heavens, and perhaps even hear a response back from thousands of light-years away. My hand creeps upwards, but I exhale and the hiss brings me back.
Then I look down, and thoughts of the universe escape me as my mind is captured by the Earth below. I sigh, a sigh shared with the few who have come before and the many that will come after. There are pictures of this sight, of course, but pictures do not, and will never, do it justice. There are movies that play in science theatres, but they are only pale reflections of the vista that fills my view.
Take the stars you see in the night sky and condense them onto a schoolboy's map; it will start to approximate the sea of lights that paint the coast below me. They are public libraries and personal houses and towering skyscrapers — they are beacons of life, of humanity as a whole; they say We are Here and This is What We Made. I see cities that house millions of people, each person living an individual life full of joy and sorrow and fear and friendship, all condensed down to a single, brilliant point of light.
In this moment I understand both why some people believe and why others do not. For who could doubt the brushstrokes of a greater hand than our own in creating this piece of art, this painting made by billions of lives who would never know how their work would look when taken together? And yet, after seeing this view, who could steal credit away from the hard work and imagination of builders and dreamers and parents and children that created these homes and histories, brick by brick, idea by idea?
I reach out futilely to touch the touch this affirmation of our existence and I wonder if there is someone who has done it for real, a being who strides between galaxies and observes the universe as it unfolds. I wonder if he has reached out to touch a particularly concentrated area of light and if millions of people sighed quietly in their dreams as a benevolent presence passed over.
I could die many times over in the time it would take me to consider all of the ifs that confront me as I watch down from the heavens, but I am spared.
The sun breaks over the edge of the Earth.
Dawn spreads, a rushing wave of light that turns the monochrome of the night earth into the azure oceans, the emerald forests, the topaz deserts, and the brilliant white snowscapes of the poles and the mountains between. The lights of the night are swallowed by the colors of the sun, and I draw breath quickly for fear of forgetting to do so later.
And as I watch millions of unseen lives yawn and stretch and start their lives, never knowing that someone is watching them and loving them more than any stranger has before, I understand something else.
I am part of a brotherhood with the others that have been here, beyond the stratosphere, watching a sunrise unlike any other; it changes how I see you and me, us and them. We are given an almost omniscient moment to view humanity from a higher viewpoint, and it is a moment that erases the artificial barriers that we erect between us.
From space, there is only life, and the miracle of this planet that sustains us.
