Star Light, Star Bright

A chance encounter over breakfast Saturday morning precipitated an evening stargazing trip to Petersburg Pass with Jono, Devin, and Daniel. For stargazing purposes, it's hard to beat the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Barring the hazy glow in the valleys to either side and the occasional passing car, the stars had the place all to themselves. To the north was the Big Dipper balancing precariously on its handle above its lesser counterpart; to the south was Orion, the original comic book superhero with his broad shoulers, narrow waist, and tiny head. Saturn and Jupiter were in attendance, the former overhead, the latter rising above the eastern horizon to the left of the twin star Al-Ghrei'loq. Sirius was twinkling madly to the south, as was Arcturus in the northeast- the latter so colorfully I first took it for an airplane.

For the full effect of being suspended in the cosmos, don't look up at the stars- try looking down at them. It's all very well and good to stand comfortably on the nice solid earth and contemplate the heavens, but try hanging precariously by your two feet and looking down at the stars floating in an infinite abyss. It will inspire profound thoughts, and possibly profound vertigo. It's also much closer to the truth. Of all Chesterton's paradoxical and wonderful insights, this is one of my favorites:

“We were talking about St. Peter,” he said, “you remember he was crucified upside down. I’ve often fancied his humility was rewarded by seeing in death the beautiful vision of his boyhood. He also saw the landscape as it really is: with the stars like flowers, and the clouds like hills, and all men hanging on the mercy of God." (The Poet and the Lunatic)

If you think about it, the force of gravity is really a wonderful metaphor for Divine Providence. It's a mysterious, invisible force that no one really understands that keeps us from falling off the face of the earth at any given moment. We don't really stop to think about it any more than we ever stop to think about the fact that we are being held in existence at every moment by nothing more than the love of God. A bit humbling, really- what have I done today to justify my existence being sustained for another 86,400 seconds? Not much... besides, um, updating this 'blog. Does that count?

Anyway, we stood out there for about an hour, pondering the vast array of Greek constellations with their Latin names and their Arabic stars, pondering the vastness of the cosmos and talking about whatever tangential topics popped into our heads. You know, when I was a little kid I used to read about astronomy, but I didn't really have a good idea of relative timespans. I used to worry a lot about the sun running out of hydrogen gas and consuming some of the inner planets, not to mention the inevitable collision of the Milky Way with the Andromeda Galaxy- both scheduled to happen about five billion years from now. I mean, sure that sounds like a long time from now- but you know humanity is gonna wait 'till like the night before and then start freaking out. I mean, what are we gonna do? And then somebody's mom is gonna be like, "How long have you known about this assignment?" and everyone's gonna be like, "um... five billion years..." And don't even get me started on black holes. I mean, what are we gonna do if one of those shows up and starts eating everything?

Of course, we'll be lucky if we make it that long. It was just five years ago or so- my 16th birthday in fact, May 5 2000, that some alarmists were predicting that the alignment of the planets would cause a net gravitational disturbance that would mess up the earth's axis, shifting the poles around and generally playing havoc with just about everything- you know, the ice caps melting and flooding everything, that sort of thing. The ancient Egyptians knew this, of course, which is why they left us all those secret messages in the Great Pyramids- and you can bet the Freemasons and the Knights Templar knew about this for a long time but didn't bother to tell anyone else. Some guy published a book- 5/5/2000 (Ice: the Ultimate Disaster) which of course I bought, after the fact. Seems he had some crazy plan for airlifting everybody for a month- well, i wouldn't call it a plan exactly- he had a list of objectives like:

a) develop a suitable airship design
b) develop a suitable propulsion system
c) develop a suitable system for recycling food and water

Way to state the obvious, buddy. It's a good thing those ancient Egyptians were just playing a practical joke on us, because if they had been serious, there wouldn't even be anyone around for you to say "I told you so" to. Not that you would be around either, unless you figured out some airship designs in a hurry.

I forgot to mention that I saw National Treasure on Saturday night which is what got me into this whole Egyptian/Masonic conspiracy mindset in the first place. The premise of this movie, for those who haven't seen it, is that the Founding Fathers- Freemasons to a man, of course- smuggled the treasure of King Solomon (previously in the custody of the Knights Templar) to America and hid it from the British, conveniently leaving a trail of clues including a secret message on the back of the Declaration of Independence for future treasure hunters to find. It was actually quite entertaining- an excellent film to watch with an audience who doesn't mind you keeping up a running commentary of sarcastic but appreciative remarks.

On that note I'll wrap up this entry with a preview of what is to come. What do bells, mind control, and the Catholic Church have in common? Tune in later for a personal confession.