TIME AND OTHER NONSENSE

A while ago I signed up for daily emails from NASA, me being a space and sci-fi geek. It’s true. Today an email reported that a NASA probe had reached the edge of our solar system. One would think that the solar system has no end. That it drains comfortably and seamlessly into the infinity of outer space. That there is a calm transition from our worlds to the universe beyond. One could think so, but one would be wrong, and now there is proof. The probe’s data shows that rather than tranquil, empty space, the edge of the solar system is composed of a turbulent field of magnetic bubbles.

A sea of frenzied, troubled bubbles. All attracting? Or all repelling? Perhaps some combination that allows individual bubbles of all permutations to intermingle or float alone. Does the field hold our solar system in place, keeping it from expanding too far or diluting its strengths? Maybe it blocks out a hostile, threatening cosmos. Magnetism, crushing us, also holds us all together as one. Turbulence, inconstancy, keeps us oxygenated and alive. Bubbles, closed impenetrable forms, are also spheres that hold the endless circle of creation. How amazing, how profound. The universe isn’t smooth and easy any more than our lives are. There is messiness and unhappiness and lack of control. And boundaries that aren’t clear cut. That bleed out even when you try so hard to rein in. And people saying and doing the wrong things and making all kinds of stupid mistakes. And mysteries, challenges of the unknown. This is the norm, if we take space as a model. The universe is a dangerous, difficult place.

Yet we have to find a way to live in it for the short time we have consciousness and awareness. Magnetism  is strength. Turbulence means change. Bubbles  – simplicity and clarity. The world is what you discover in it. The answers lie within your own mind and heart. The challenge is to assess the whole, to dissect and reassemble the pieces, to find the beauty in all things.