Saturday, June 6, 2015

Collapsing stars

Carl Sagan said " The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, was made from the interior of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff."
The first time I read this I felt as though it meant I was part of something infinite - which is motivational when infinity is a happy place. I believed that it meant I am a part of something that existed before and will continue to exist after I am no longer here. I felt a connection to the universe in an elemental way and the connection felt good.
Right now I am equally convinced I am made from collapsing stars, but not in the way I first interpreted Sagan. 
Collapsing stars are black holes. The infinity of this moment is exquisitely painful - as I would imagine the gravitational force of a cosmic implosion and the creation of a black hole would be. The absence of light, complete destruction. 
My pain feels as old as the stars and as expansive.  It's not a tap root that I can pluck out of my soul. It is Pando, the trembling giant. The largest single living organism, 80 thousand years old and 6 million kg. Heavy, alive and growing. The only connection I feel in this infinite moment is the connection to greater and deeper root system of pain. This infinity is lonely, and dark, and burning cold. What I think I know about black hole's is that nothing that we suspect has gone in has ever come out - at least as we know it in this dimension. It is theorized that black holes in our universe are the beginnings of universes elsewhere. If this infinite moment ends I won't exist anymore - not as I have existed before. Is that creation then?
 

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