“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.”
(Cormac McCarthy, American novelist and playwright)
There are rings around Uranus. There are even more around Neptune and Jupiter. These rings are not clearly visible. They are much “smaller, darker and fainter than the rings of Saturn.” It was not until the 1970s that they were first Discovered. It was not until 2013 that I first learned of this fascinating fact. Apparently, they have been there all long. Each of these four giant gas planets, in our outer Solar System, “is orbited by rings of dust and small particles of matter.” All that debris floating in the heavens at a distance that no one can see. Secret things, at least it would seem.
In 1610 CE, Galileo peered out into space and realized that rings surround the planet Saturn. Over 400 years later and we have finally started to realize the invisible beauty of our celestial neighbourhood. We cannot “view” these rings, but astronomers know they are there. The fine material in them is “so diffuse they cannot be seen from Earth,” but modern technology has allowed us a glimpse into a new reality about our universe. Rings are common. They have always been there and we had no idea.
There is great debate over the question of whether Pluto, and even Mars, may may also have a ring system. We should know more about the icy former in 2015, when New Horizons, a “NASA robotic spacecraft mission,” finally reaches this newly coined dwarf planet. It is speculated that Earth itself, billions of years ago, was orbited by remnants of a “Mars sized object” which crashed into our planet and sent ring material into the outer atmosphere. It is believed that this debris was eventually fused together to form our Moon. Mankind has even created its own ring around this planet. Space debris and orbital junk drift forever high above terra firma. No matter our good intentions, we tend to emulate nature in our own moronic ways. Every day, it seems, we are discovering even more wonders in the heavens. I cannot begin to imagine all that human beings have yet to learn. The possibilities seem endless, but I suppose that’s one thing this universe is good for. It keeps revealing to us its majesty. It calls out of the unknown. Things we could not have even imagined 500 years ago are now tangible, identifiable, but nonetheless brilliant. Perhaps that is what the cosmos is for. We keep asking for some answers when, just maybe, they have been in front of our faces all along.
“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.” (Anaïs Nin, French-American author)
My childhood was filled with Nature. The area where I grew up in Toronto Don River was just down the street. Outside of the city, both sets of my Grandparents had large sections of land, ripe with all different kinds of this and that. The maternal pair had an expansive lot, cultivated for gardens and farm stock. Across the street, tobacco fields stretched as far as the eye could see. Until I turned 6, I thought that green was the only colour. I was exposed to almost every kind of creature one could imagine. Mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects roamed the land as if humans were not even there. My paternal grandparents lived on a huge space, towering over the Wingham river. The steep but friendly incline always led to grand adventure. I learned how to fish on these riverbanks. I gutted my first victim here. The river made for scenic canoe rides, wild animal sightings alongside meadows that seemed to stretch out into forever. Come winter, we travelled along the frozen shore and into the hillsides, all deep with snowy white. One Christmas, I killed my first tree here and then took it home to die. No matter the length of time we spent in the city, my parents made sure we got the entire picture when it came to God’s Creation.
Every year my family spent time at these places, escaping from the hustle and bustle of urban life. Eventually, we came to live on the very same land we all played on as children. I also spent many a summer with my cousin Lisa, roaming central In the summer of my 6th year, I first stayed at my Grandparents’ place in my Mom’s hometown of
I had no idea what a caterpillar was, but she assured me I would know one when I saw it. Its long, hairy Body and all those legs were dead giveaways once I had discovered one. Carefully I picked it up from the path it travelled, placed it in the jar, and ran back to Grandma Norah with my brand new friend. It is not often I think of this woman pleasantly, but at this moment she shined to me. Taking the lid off, placing leaves and grass inside for food, she took a small stick and wedged it within. I had to promise her not to disturb the creature for the fear that I might squish it. Her instruction was exquisite to this young boy’s ears. She told me that something wonderful would happen if I left my new pal alone. The magic found in Creation would, in the end, amaze me. I was captivated by what happened next. First the bug seemed to hang from a limb, then some type of casing formed around it. All I had to do was wait, then suddenly, just like the magic I had been promised, a butterfly appeared. I was astonished, dumbfounded and somewhat scared. This beautiful creature had stolen my friend. God had kidnapped him and he was nowhere to be found.
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
(Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist) The distance from the spot where I had died to the spot I had been discovered alive is approximately 1000 metres. A bone yard path seems to have led the way. The Avondale cemetery in Stratford , Ontario
I arrived in town from the southwest. I popped all that Valium like it was candy. I entered the dark and abandoned cemetery around 9 PM on Sunday, February 19th 1995. It was bloody cold out. I do not recall anything once I got past the front gates. I was discovered near the train tracks around noon of the next day. For all the cold, for all the snow, in spite of the deep February winter, I was fine. Other than taking a day or two to wake up, not one side effect of my suicide attempt met me after the other side. Yes, I recall having a Near Death Experience, but in no way does it explain why there was no medical consequence to my actions. No frostbite was found anywhere on my body. Even frost burn failed to caress my exposed skin. My toes, my fingers, even my ears, were left intact and uncompromised by the event. Sub-zero degrees had barely lowered my core body temperature. By the time I awoke in hospital, even the Valium had faded from my system. I sat up startled and filled with resentment. In my mind, I had died. My NDE remains, almost 20 years later, the strongest memory I have from this life. My body, however, lives on with no clear explanation as to why. Of all the doctors I have questioned regarding this outcome, not one has been able to explain it away. Every time I speak of it to a Minister, or a Priest, they always reply, ”It wasn’t your time.” A Christian fundamentalist preacher even had the audacity to claim that “God doesn’t want you!” Regardless, I am still here against every odd. I truly understand the unpredictability of the human body. Many men and women, before and after this time, have experienced greater and stranger phenomenon. To be frank, I really don’t care about their metaphysical encounters. I want to comprehend mine first. I want to know what happened and why things didn’t happen. I long to know how this could be. I spent all these years wondering, questioning, looking and all I have come to understand is exactly what I knew before.
“When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.” (Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American artist, poet and writer)
With few exceptions, we cannot see the human soul. You cannot reach out and touch gravity or radio waves. It is impossible to physically hold on to love. These unseen forces are all around us but invisible to the mortal eye. They are beyond our grasp as we cannot touch them. This does not automatically negate their existence. Despite their intangible nature, we know that they are real. We have come to understand that they are. Of course, someone had to discover them to reveal them. Sometimes the truth hides from us and we have to search and search until we find it. Sometimes the truth is right in front of our faces, but we care not to see; we want things to be the way they have always been. Inevitably, there will always be unanswered questions, inquiries we can never hope to have answered The truth is you can’t always know the truth.
It is disappointing to learn that one cannot know everything. So much is still unseen. Some questions are better left unexamined, I suppose. Some things we can never know. Some things we must discover for ourselves. Some things we don’t want to know. Either way, you have to learn to live with the unknown. The truth might come to light at some point, affirming the answer was there all along. On occasion, coming face to face with the unknown might well scare the crap out of you. You may even resolve yourself to not knowing. If you knew, after all, then gone would be the mystery.
“Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
(King Henry VI - Part 2, Act 4, Sc 7 William Shakespeare)
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_ring
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=206http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/Rings_Around_the_Planets.cfm
http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/ExploringSolarSystem/ExploringRings.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratford,_Ontario
http://www.in.gov/dnr/historic/files/cem_glossary.pdfhttp://www.cremationassociation.org/?page=CremationOptions
Photos
http://mail.colonial.net/~hkaiter/planetwebpages08/FOV1-000338E1/planet%20project.html
http://benthamshouse.blogspot.ca/2008/09/butterflies-of-barbados.html
http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=2324512
