Every time I start out with this newsletter I try not to deliver a sermon, but I usually fail. I guess it’s my genre. Or maybe my fate. Supernova!
Stars get old and die, just like everything else. Some stars are so huge (eight times the mass of our sun) that when they burn out and collapse, it causes them to explode in a rare and glorious event called a supernova. In these glorious explosions the entire star turns inside out, or rather outside in; having no more fuel to burn it collapses and creates intense heat and pressure that causes it to blow up, scattering newly formed heavy metals and other odd, hard to create elements here and there throughout the cosmos.
Astronomers estimate that an average of 3 supernovas occur every century somewhere in the Milky Way galaxy. You can see them with your naked eye sometimes even though they might be hundreds of thousands of light years away in another galaxy. They flash into existence and then dim and disappear in a matter of weeks.
These cosmic dust clouds created by supernoviated stars become stellar nurseries where new stars are formed and solar systems and planets and people. Huh? Yes these stars, in their moment of extreme trauma create something new and amazing - the heavy elements, like everything heavier than iron, number 26 on the periodic table. Here’s the periodic table. All 118 elements from hydrogen to oganesson.
Of course every star originally started out as hydrogen with maybe a little helium in the mix (the two simplest elements in the universe), and they were drawn together by gravity until they become so compressed and super hot that they start fusing. Nuclear fusion is how our sun works, fusing hydrogen into helium and releasing energy in the process: what we know as solar radiation - sunlight.
Us humans, we try to protect ourselves against disasters with every means possible: car insurance and air bags and agreements and guarantees. We want nothing to do with the violence of deep space. Yet it’s in those moments of collapse and disintegration that something new and amazing is born. Out in interstellar space krypton (yes krypton is an element) and argon and radium and uranium and gold and cobalt and all kinds of stuff that never existed before, explodes onto the scene when a star supernovas. And it’s the same in our own lives. When do big changes happen? When do you find yourself redefining yourself? When everything crashes, right? When your little personal world that you have created and tried to protect gets destroyed. I already checked this out and found it to be true, atleast in my own life.
That’s how I wrote my book. Detonation and massive destruction. My little world exploded so I could manifest something that never existed before. Pretty basic.
I think that’s what’s happening to our nation. Destruction and detonation. Weird. Really weird. Like scary weird but I don’t see any other way of describing it. I mean everything seems normal so far, unless you get picked up by an ICE raid and sent off to a detention center. Everything seems fairly normal but it’s really not. A strange mood has descended on our America.
Today I was in the grocery store, in the bulk herbs and spices department and this lady says just out of the blue, “Well, we’ll never see that one again.” referring to the exceptional number of empty jars sitting on the herb shelves.
I replied, “Yep, the end of civilization as we know it.”
We both laughed at that, the laugh of “Yeah, I know exactly what you’re saying but I hope it isn’t true.”
Meanwhile the kids are playing Minecraft, building a new world on an endless stage full of possibilities (my previous post). And without AI. We need to become humans, not cyborgs. Isn’t that obvious to everybody? Apparantly not. Hybrid? I could go with that if the choice was between cyborg and hybrid. Actually Minecraft uses AI to “create a more immersive game play”. I just learned this. Thank you Wikipedia and all your AI search engine sisters that I use to find information.
Thank you all you AI’s running around the internet enhancing my experience, creating a more immersive game play. See, I’ve already been hybridized. If you don’t know what that means, it’s kind of half cyborg / half human. Which is where alot of us are at these days.
Think about how many times you interact with a computer in your day. Point of sale at the grocery store, scanning a QR code on your phone or a bar code on a can of tuna fish, your GPS telling you where to go, your friend’s phone going off in the middle of a conversation, opening your laptop to get some work done, doom scrolling social media at home to relax. Each interaction forces you to speak the language of the computer, it doesn’t speak your language. Well unless it has voice over but that’s just an interface, it’s still a computer. You are being programmed by a computer and the computer has been programmed by a human and the human is being paid by a company and the company is trying to take your money and as much as possible without completely blowing the game. It’s also called ‘business’.
Hmm. That kind of diverted into an economic screed. Oh well, I can preach on that too. Money is God. Or atleast we worship it as if it were. The pursuit of it justifies anything and everything including war.
In 1519 Cortez landed on the shores of Mexico with 400 men, 6 ships and 88 horses. Within two years he had defeated the mighty Aztec empire, captured its emperor, Cuauhtémoc, and availed himself of all its riches. That story is well told elsewhere and it’s a fantastic one, but at some point in the saga one of the conquered nobles, presumably just before he was about to get his head cut off, asked Cortez a question, “What is it that motivates you Spaniards?” Cortez is said to have replied, “Spaniards have a disease and it is only cured by gold.” The disease has not been cured, however, it has become a world-wide pandemic.
That’s another thing we’re programmed for: consumer behavior. They know exactly what it takes for you to make the purchase decision and that’s what they program you for. Who’s they? Look at what you buy and why. Then look at what you actually need. That’s they, blurring the line.
Our actual needs are food, water, air, shelter and community or some kind of communion, also health care. That would be six, not ten thousand. We live in our desires that are not even our true needs and then we have to go to work to pay for all the things we think we need.
Hey ‘things’ are fun, I’ve got plenty of them but I just don’t want to forget what’s important in life. I have tried my whole adult life to remember what is important - being happy basically or whatever you might call it. By any name it’s the same thing. Except it’s not a thing. That’s what I’ve learned. It’s a feeling. It’s a knowing. It’s something I have to practice at or I forget it in a flash. Back to the general blurring of borders. Need and want become arbitrary and neither one seems to be enough.
Everything in the universe goes thru its cycles, even the universe itself. Birth and death. The world is not the same as it was 10,000 years ago and it won’t be the same as it is now 10,000 years in the future. This will appear as some kind of an arrogant, willful phase of humanity, like a confused adolescent or more likely a naughty two year old acting out just to call attention to themselves. Our politics will be different, how we live on this planet (if we still live on this planet) will be different.
I swear, if we make it another 10,000 years we will have to accrue some wisdom somewhere along the line. We’ll have to become human not cyborgs and take our place in the biosphere. Maybe we need a time out (my favorite video of all time).
Hmm. So what else can I preach about? My father was a preacher, my great grandfather was a preacher and my great-great grandfather was a preacher too. I was brought up on tales of Ezekiel and Elijah. Ole Elijah brought forth the Word of God and slew Jezebel’s priests for they were worshiping the wrong gods. Well, old Jezebel she didn’t like that too much and went after old Elijah and he run for the wilderness, hid in a cave. And there he was, half starved, lonely and cold. And a great wind came up and God was not in the wind and a crackling thunder filled the sky and God was not in the thunder and the lightening flashed through the clouds but God was not in the lightening. Then Elijah heard a still, small voice coming from inside and God was in the still small voice.
That’s how I remember it.
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