Ancient and Contemporary WOWS!
It was pretty enthralling to watch the splashdown of the Artemis II Orion spacecraft last Friday evening, bringing home four astronauts who had traveled further from Earth than anyone else before them. The science and technology that made this latest space mission, and the others over the last several decades, possible, boggles my itty bitty brain. And humbles me as a tiny little human on a sizable planet in a vast galaxy in an even more unfathomably vast universe.
Wow!
The Earth and the moon are similar in age–each estimated to be around 4.5 billion years old. That’s ancient! Contemporary science allowed four humans to travel 700,000 miles in a spacecraft over ten days and return with a gentle landing in the Pacific Ocean.
Wow!
As we continue to honor April as National Poetry Month, here are two poems that may not be ancient, but they are old in human years–written 800-900 years ago.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
-Rumi-
The Sun Never Says
Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”
Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.
-Hafiz-
Wow! Much has changed since these two writers created these insightful poems. They are as fitting today as when they were written. What would Rumi and Hafiz compose about our world today? What are you and I composing, creating, impressing, feeling, thinking, revealing, hiding with our own actions and words each day?
I look at this early morning picture of the moon, over 238,000 miles away and 4.5 billion years old, and I think about the astronauts who were only eighty miles away from it a couple of weeks ago. Wow! I think about how I can approach this tiny stretch of time known as a day, the twenty-four hours ahead. I want to contribute, not contaminate. I want to bring good energy and add to the positive stream of humankind. Maybe somewhere down the road of history, someone will read my words and be inspired by them. Onward!
