Ancestral Light

The wonder and awe of ancient luminosity

A Community of Voices

The Pillars of Creation, NASA

“The Pillars of Creation are truly magnificent. They are about seven thousand light-years away, which means that every photon our telescopes capture from it is seven thousand years old. The Pillars themselves are about six light-years across, meaning it would take light six years to travel across them.” - Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, The Disordered Cosmos

"...the cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself." - Carl Sagan, Cosmos

"Humans may be a way the universe knows itself, but truly we are only a way. Honestly, I can't know myself without the cosmos or without you, The Stars." - Nya Abernathy, A Letter to the Stars

“When my father worked on the Hubble Telescope, he said They operated like surgeons…The optics jibed. We saw to the edge of all there is—So brutal and alive it seemed to comprehend us back.” -Tracy K. Smith, Life on Mars: Poems, 5.

“In fact, the path to wonder is not sophistication or intellect or articulation, it is a clock wound backward.” – Cole Arthur Rile, This Here Flesh

Ancestral Light

Above, Cole Arthur Riley in This Here Flesh is talking about wonder captured in childhood. She's so right. Yet, when I read this it takes me further back than my single-digit ages.

Wonder being a "clock wound backward" took me to the sky.

One of my bedside space books (yes, I have more than one) is The Mysteries of the Universe by Will Gater. The pictures are utterly astounding and elicit awe all by themselves. But the learning brings even more joy to my nerdy heart.

This is the Spindle Galaxy:

Photo by NASA

It is jaw droppingly beautiful and exquisitely far. What we can see of the galaxy is a masterpiece of ancient light. The light of that galaxy has taken 44 million years to get to our blue dot in the cosmos. You are literally looking into the past when you look up.

Photo by Lenstravelier on Unsplash

The light from our star, the one we call Sun, it is 8 minutes old by the time it reaches us. Even the sunshine on your face is from the past.

If you don't know Mahalia Jackson, listen to her sing one of the most recognizable gospel songs "How I Got Over". The line, "You know my soul look back and wonder how I made it over?" came to me as I pondered celestial wonder and light. She sings of struggle and hardness and difficulty and ultimately of being brought “over”. I believe she's singing from a place that knows the distance crossed going from who she's told she is by an unkind, wonderless world to arrive at the knowing of her own awe and marvel in the eyes of Creator. This same Creator is sometimes called the Father of Lights. If the Creator who “brings us over” is the Father of the 44 million-year-old Spindle Galaxy light, then surely this Creator is also the Ancient of Days, having brought many over their journey. For some of us, it seems we had to travel 44 million heart-years on this Earth before the Light of Our Wonder reached us. 

Now friends, I know you know the light of the Spindle Galaxy has its own purpose apart from us. We are not the the sole-center of the universe. And as the Spindle Galaxy is contentedly being its lovely luminous self, what can 44 million year old light mean to us? What's the point of us not only seeing the light but also knowing some parts of the light's story, knowing that it's source no longer exists as we see it? If the ancestral light of a galaxy can exist - without diffusing, with a clarity of its source as brilliant and wonder-full as it was when the light left - for millions of years, can we imagine our own ancestral light?

If your ancestors are those who have come and gone before you that you are tethered to...sometimes willingly and sometimes not...what of their light? What if the light of your ancestors is coming towards you through spacetime, awaiting you to behold their light with wonder and awe? What of the ancestral light you are creating now, that light that will be seen coming from you out to the 7th generation and beyond?

What light will you leave in the Earth that will mix with time and space, inherited by the future ones who will be of your particular place? For us, the Spindle Galaxy beckons us to hope in wonder of Ancestral Light. We can marvel, confess, and tell the story of "how we got over" the distances placed between our eyes and the light of our inherent wonder. In the midst, may we also marvel in the light we bring over and beyond our own selves and our now to those awaiting the beauty of our light.

Ritual of Connectedness

Supernova Remnant Image by NASA

Consider the "light" that will travel into the future from you to future generations.

What is the texture of your light?

What is the color of your light?

What is the temperature of your light?

What do you hope your light offers to those who will come after you?

Name 1-3 small, accessible ways you can live now to craft the kind of light you have described above.

Cloud of Witnesses

The Pillars of Creation in Infrared by Nasa

Have you ever heard someone - more than likely a preacher - talk about the "great cloud of witnesses"? I've almost exclusively heard of this in the context of being in a stadium, where all the current "people of faith" are in the middle of the stadium and the cloud of witnesses are "saints of old" sitting in the stands, cheering us on to complete our earthly faith-tasks in anticipation of that coveted "well done!"¹

Welp, if you have my brain or one like it, you may start considering things like stellar nurseries and get hungry for a fresh reading on that "great cloud of witness"....

*clears throat*

So since we stand-surrounded by all those who have gone before, an enormous cloud of witnesses, let us drop every extra weight...²

Friends, we are together, though not in a stadium. We are not on display, and neither our existence nor expression of hope is a form of entertainment or sport. We are not in an event that is closed off from the rest of creation and only accessed by certain ticket holders, with the good seats reserved for those who pay extra. Friends, let's envision being together and being surrounded in a different way.

We stand surrounded by The Pillars of Creation and their comrades: other stellar nurseries who contain the conditions to create stars and send light in every direction throughout the cosmos, even all the way to us.

All those who have gone before include these ancient birthers of young light. Light that is hot and blue, formed uniquely into itself within community. Light that will eventually leave the nursery and continue on for millions or even billions of years. The Pillars and their children surround us, having light that has come before and will be after us.

An enormous cloud of witnesses has to be big enough to emit detectable light from thousands and millions of light years away. A stadium isn't big enough for this cloud we are surrounded by. While telescopes help us see these material witnesses of gas, stars, dust, and the effects of gravity (and surely dark matter and energy), cultural stories help us see something else. This enormous cloud of witnesses inspired the stories of our elders, our ancestors, our cultures. Though they may not have had a Hubble Telescope to see the details of The Pillars of Creation, many before us understood those points of light in the sky as origin and also as places of return. Many have held cosmologies that named the lights of the sky as pillars of creation long before modern astronomy formally did the same. Many were sure we all were connected to these lights before, during, and after our physical existence on this blue dot, Earth.

Let us drop every extra weight that tells us that misery is all there is. Let us drop every weight that would claim awe as frivolous. Let us drop every weight that deems storytelling for children, instead of seeing story intrinsically tied up with our place in the cosmos. Drop every weight that names you unworthy instead of calling you wonder-full. Pick up the weight of wonder when you consider The Pillars of Creation as part of the great cloud of witnesses. Pick up the weight of imagination when you breathe life-giving air that is made life-giving by the trees who were made by the elements of stars that died - the same stars that were first born within the great clouds themselves. Drop every weight that says you don't belong here, in this moment, as your whole self. You do. You are made of the stardust blown off by a young blue star that lived, got old, and died. You and each one of us are deeply connected to the great witness cloud.

So as you go, carry the weight of wonder that tethers you to yourself, to others, to this Earth, and to our ancestors who have gone before us and still surround us, the Cloud of (Cosmic) Witnesses.

What The Light Has Seen - A Visualization

You can listen to me read this visualization to you by playing the audio below.

You know what's cool about the light of the cosmos? Not just that it has travelled so far to and continues beyond us, but also what the light we see has seen itself.

The billions-of-years-old light we see emitted from galaxy HD1 (the oldest known galaxy in the observable universe) has seen some thangs. On it's way to us, what has this light passed?

Take a deep breath.

Imagine being a photon—a tiny particle—of this ancient light. As you and your community of photons travel through the universe, you see much on your journey. Since distance in the cosmos is better measured in light-years, you observe these events not in quick flashes, but over time. Even at the speed of light you can watch cosmic events as they are unfolding. You see the death of stars.  Some die by transitioning to white dwarfs and others go supernova. Still some transform into neutron stars, and others evolve into black holes.  You and your fellow photons see baby stars twinkling in their nebula nurseries - gaseous clouds, some hundreds of light years across, where gravity and matter interact in ways that form infant stars. You see slightly older stars gathering together, the beginnings of galaxy formation. At the speed of visible light, you move through parts of the vast cosmos that are utterly unilluminated and uninhabited by anything except dark matter and dark energy. You can't see it, but you know it's there. In these parts of space, you are the only light as far as an eye could see. Does this darkness feel like home to you, to you as light? Is the darkness the companion you as light long for?

You don't travel unencumbered. Going for billions of years you don't just see, but also bump into other light. You get caught up in distortions in space time, tugged by the gravity of myriad celestial objects.  Asteroids, planets, and moons, comets, stars, and gas clouds greet you on your way to here, to the blue dot - Earth. What of the universe is visible to you that isn't visible on the blue Earth dot? All that you have seen on your travels, how has it changed you, you as a photon of light?

Take a deep breath.

You were a wonderful photon, dear friend. Now, return to your own luminous, complex system of matter we call human. You are back on your blue dot.

Consider this billions-of-years-old-light from the oldest luminous object in the observable universe. When this Elder-light gets to you, to us, her wisdom is deep and old. Her experiences have marked her journey, even if she never shares them. The light has brought us herself. She welcomes our warranted assumption that truly she has seen some thangs, and in that she is to be honored with wonder. We are in awe because of who she is, and that she would insist on travelling all this way to us as a visible stop on her journey through the universe.

And as a reminder, even as she passes by, she is connected to you, and you to her, this ancient, galactic Elder light.

What Has My Attention

Eagle Nebula from NASA

NASA’s Photo of the Day Archive is fun to click through! Pick a special date (i.e. a birthday, anniversary, etc.) and see what the photo of the day was!

I am listening to the audiobook of speculative fiction writer Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun and wow! It’s wildly good and an excellent book for listening!

The account on Instagram that I LOVE seeing show up on my timeline :D

I’ve been in a Lizzo mood (I didn’t know I had a Lizzo mood, but I do!). Her music library, particularly the song Coconut Oil, and her series Watch Our For The Big Grrrls have been beautiful and fun for my soul.

On twitter, this thread of responses to the Black Hole sound enhancement are cracking me up. I literally LOL’d (and might have danced a little?) at this one, and I had tears in my eyes when I read this one!

1. The text in full context (see footnote below) does compare life to a race. However, there are often references to the “great cloud of witnesses” as a stand-alone concept for the purpose of encouragement. This is what I am leaning into here.

2. Hebrews 12:1, The Voice Translation, The Bible