Sunday, December 03, 2006

The Moon

Have you ever stopped to realize that we have a floating body orbiting our planet? I find this concept so fascinating, yet the Moon is not a highly regarded part of our modern life. Every time I look at it looming in the sky, I take for granted that it is an massive celestial body that is accessible even to our feeble existence.

I realize that my feet have stepped on its mass through the vessel of another. That I, as a part of the human race, have stepped upon the boundaries of the heavens, the gate to everything beyond.

The Greeks believed that the stars were just pinpricks in a great spherical container that surrounded the sun, the moon, and our neighboring planets. Science proved them wrong and instead told us that they are millions upon billions of other suns in the great expanse we have come to know as our Universe.

But we can't get there. At least we haven't yet, and for all practical purposes, we never will. It is a currently intractable goal, and that is why we must look a little closer to home.

The Moon orbits the Earth at roughly 238,854 miles. Depending on where it is in its current orbit, it can be slightly closer or farther, but the point is that's pretty damn close. Let's put this in perspective. If you took all the DNA within an average human body and unwound it end on end, you would go to the moon and back 2 times! This confers a beautiful metaphor of an inner ability to reach that heavenly body.

But maybe the important thing isn't getting there at all. Maybe the important thing is realizing that there exists another world entirely. It goes beyond yours, or mine, or anybody in this realm. There is untouched ground, well for now, that we have never laid our covetous hands upon. Land of infinite times, or at least on our species' timelines. Our ancestors saw that same land thousands of years ago, and there it still lies. For your whole life, that same Moon is going to look down upon you, watch your infinite struggles and battles and journeys and revels and sojourns and hardships and successes. Its same face staring at you too, because it is tidally locked to us. It no longer rotates to reveal its "dark side".

Quite honestly, it may be the closest friend you'll ever have. In its infinite neutrality, it will always be there, the same way, the same thing, changing only in the amount of light it reflects in your direction, relative, once again, to its position in its orbit.

I only hope to convey to whoever reads this: when you think you have nothing, and that all is lost, or you think you have everything and need nothing more, there's one thing (among the other things that are infinitely "free") that will always be there to be glorious under your scrutiny. It was there when you were born, and one will only hope it will be there when you die, maybe even be there for the other generations that will come after you.

It's our Moon.