This is a photo of the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), a Planetary Nebula in
the constellation Aquarius, as photographed though my diminutive 72mm refractor.
Planetary Nebulas get their name from the fact that they often look like planets
through a small telescopes. The Helix nebula has been given the moniker the “Eye
of God” because of its photographic resemblance to a giant eye, looking back at
us from space.
Humanity has long gazed into space looking for a connection,
something that tells us that all that we see is relevant to our existence. All
primitive cultures developed cosmological stories that attempted to explain how
“we” came to be, and nearly all link us to “the heavens.” Even those stories which place our origins on,
or sometimes in, the Earth eventually link us to the stars in one way or
another. In our modern Western tradition, we have both the Judeo/Christian
religious tradition and ancient practices of Astrology which have historically connected
us with the Cosmos.
In our religious traditions, we have the notion of an anthropomorphic
construct of (an often all too human) creator deity, who resides in (or beyond) the
heavens, looking down on us like a herdsman looking down from a hill top, overseeing
his flock. While those of a more mechanical mind, have construed more of a
clockwork universe where the positions of the sun, stars and planets somehow
govern our daily actions. While we Moderns now know that both these
perspectives are faulty, we can never seem to get over the feeling that somehow
that these outdated notions are still correct in some obscure way. I have had
many friends and students that have said that when they look up into the night
sky, they feel as if someone was looking back at them. While I know many more
people who still refer to themselves as being Virgos or Libras when it comes to
explaining away one or more of their personality traits.
I have spent my entire life looking into the sky and making
connections. My perspectives have sometimes been influenced by popular
beliefs, practices and traditions, but without fail, I always return to a more visceral, personal
relationship. Not a person to person relationship like that of the Jews,
Muslims or Christians, whereby some other entity with its own personality,
interacts with mine; nor a physical oppositional relationship, where I am here
and the universe is somewhere “out there”;
but rather a relationship whereby I am looking into my own mind, learning how to
relate to myself.
I have long abandoned any notions that I am something
separate from the Universe, or somehow something “in” the Universe, like fish in
an aquarium. When I look up into the night sky, I am the Universe looking back
on myself. This is not just some
abstract metaphysical concept, but rather an actual point of perspective, no
different than looking down at my torso and admitting that the body I see is
mine. Since my first Near Death Experience at fifteen, I have realized that
there is no other place but here, and that I am nothing other than this
perspective of Universe looking back onto itself. Every manifestation of the Cosmos is just
another aspect of this inseparable whole, with each and every sentient being, just being
another Eye of God, looking back at itself from another perspective.
The Universe is the whole realm of existence, the realm
where; men and beasts, planets and stars, energy and atoms, are all just various
aspects of the same inseparable continuum. There is no “there and here” nor “them
and us”- there is just “here” and there is just “us”...and the sooner we all figure this
out, the sooner we will stop trying to kill ourselves because of our ignorance,
envy, hatred and greed. All constructs
of God and/or all constructs of the Universe, are simply overarching constructs of ourselves, and we must come to understand that there
simply is nothing else.
Every time I look through my telescope, I know I am looking
into the Eye of God, because he and I are of the same flesh, and seeing
each other eye to eye, and seeing these things exactly as they are, is the only way I
will ever understand who really I am.
Miles
