When we are far enough away from the  cities' lights, the night sky shows us its unparalleled pageantry. It is fantastically beautiful, awesome really some might say. It's easy to get lost in the mystery of it; easy to just lose oneself in the vastness of this universe, especially when you realize that ours is just a very distant; almost deserted corner in our own small galaxy.

Thanks to Hubble we now know that we have always been billions upon billions of light years from the real activity in the majesty of the universe: Yet here we are, still confounded by the simplest of problems: Still fighting and dying over the most basic of all things that are in reality only very minor differences between basically equal beings that share the same blood, the same goals and the same dreams. This was me before the gray set in, back when I was doing set-construction for some minor plays that didn't move the critics but gave the cast some laughs and a bit of fun.

That 'universe' is still out there beyond the literal tons of space junk that we've left in orbit all around our unkempt-atmosphere. But as I gaze again on that familiar and yet forever distant light show; reality intrudes upon the moment. We 'know' that what we're seeing 'up-there' is what is generally thought to be our universal firmament and yet part of our knowledge is confused by the fact that what we're seeing is in reality a very ancient view of what has taken trillions of light years to come this far-to in theory reach "thisPlace." Then the cold hard facts intrude again because all that we can see up there is from a very distant time that for us has no actual beginning point-no "place." And since we know that this happened so very long ago that it quite literally is impossible to grasp; it seems to force the questions that surround the WHY of everything we cannot seem to ever know. At least not here, not now.

Then we are forced to remember that in reality we are all living in a universal-illusion (Mystery ~Illusion) where everything out-there and here is in reality flying at super-sonic speeds, through an ever-expanding space that itself remains a mystery: We're on a spinning tiny-orb that revolves at roughly 17,000 mph and yet everything seems so solid so stationary or as some might say: So REAL. It's hard to remember that we are nothing but collections of atoms assembled into the temporary forms we occupy, but briefly, while we continue "to live" in this universal illusion of the present.

The universe doesn't just surround us: We are part of every bit of that universe, because everything that is alive on this planet is made from the same building blocks of nature; the same 'fabric if you will that is contained in the trees and rocks, in the water and the air and yes even in the fires of life itself, which is here represented by the embryo of new life that lends purpose to the mystery and weight to our illusions.

Yet we cannot see this in that way, because we lack that specific vision that would allow us to internalize the whole of everything; that 'universe' which could show us what has already happened, if only we could truly understand reality for what it is and not for what we have decided it ought to be.

So we continue to live in the present, with a past that we can consult from time to time: but knowing that we shall never reach that promised "future" which the politicians and priests are so fond of offering; to anyone that might care to listen. No, the future is part of that ever-distant mystery that can never be disclosed, because we are confined to the few moments that we have in the NOW and the chards of memory that outline what remains of our collective past.

The one thing we all continue to share is this huge and continuously moving space that we so casually call 'the universe' while too many of us spend our days in the intentional destruction of this place that we inherited, from other times and other men and women that preceded us. Perhaps the real mystery here for us; is just how much of this world will we be able to leave to anyone that might come after us-or have we so wounded this place and those that also live here, that there cannot be a tomorrow, for enough of them to matter?

This was just some of what used to fill my head when I was lying on my deck in Tiburon, flat on my back, and genuinely lost among the stars; while still trying to understand this place with all its problems and its hatreds when there is so much more for anyone that looks: To find some value down here on earth, where we must continue to try and understand how we might be able to correct some of what we've done -  before we end up blowing up the whole damned place. . .

kirwan