Astronomical Grief: It's Mostly Mystery
Third in a Hexalogy
If you haven’t read the first piece in this hexalogy, I highly recommend reading (or re-reading if you fancy) it to orient yourself to the structure and intention of this series. I am not a formally trained scientist, but I do love all things cosmological and find deep joy writing on the edge of what is currently known and just beyond it - that place our imagination can take us that isn't too far down the street from reality. It's a space I've come to call speculative creative non-fiction. Welcome.
Yes, And
If you’d like to listen to me read this to you, I gotchu.
In another life I was a theatre nerd. I love a stage. In high school, theatre formed me in many ways as I dabbled in a variety of things - directing, musicals, set creation, dramas, monologues. One thing I avoided being formed by was improv.
Being too tightly wound and not a natural with performed comedy, improv was forcing me into a space that was wholly uncomfortable and inaccessible to me. So I let the improv geniuses (we had a trio who could have honestly been on Who's Line) do what they did and I said, "No thanks" to encouragements to just try.
Even in my twenties and beyond, improv still got a "no" from me. I was always in awe of how people could take what they walked in the door with and make magic on a stage. Yes to them, no to me.
There is a fundamental piece to improv I never picked up. The very thing it is built on was always an awkward tool for me to try and create with: the yes, and.
This is basically the point of improv1: Just let the other people do whateverthehell and commit to respond with yes, and.
No, thank you.
What if I didn't have an and? What if I didn't want to give a yes to whatever the person before me offered? What if yes, and led us all to a place I didn't want us to go, ending us up in the dumpster fire of improv while I'm expected to keep laughing anyway? (Been there. No, thank you.)
I'm wondering - did you catch it? What throws me every time in improv? It's trust. Yes, and it's mystery. Trusting the mystery of what is going to be asked of me, that I can meet the moment, and I won't be the one wanting to say no, thank you while giving a yes, and anyway.
Trusting mystery can be terrifying. Yes, and exhilarating. It's from mystery that much is created. Yes, and in mystery much is destroyed. Mystery itself isn't moral or binary. That's the thing with the mysterious - you don't really know what you are saying yes to.
We infer. Like astronomers giving attention to dark matter and dark energy, we look at the effect Mystery has on whatever it is interacting with and choose to pursue experiencing it (or not. See my improv story above.)
Dark matter and dark energy are credited for literally holding the universe together. Both mysterious entities have been present, active, and necessary since the beginning. Deeply part of the very formation of a vast cosmos that support all manner of life, our current understanding of dark matter and dark energy is that it composes most of the universe - to the tune of 95%2.
Ninety-five. Out of one hundred.
95% of material existence is mystery. From the pre-creation narrative in this hexalogy, it's noted that Love is present - in obvious ways and in liminal, even secret ways - throughout the making and sustaining of existence. Love is pervasive through the story of the cosmos. Even as we explored hydrogen, Love was a propeller, a beginning and a sustainer, both a force and a creator of forces.
Yes, Love is a mystery. And, inextricably wrapped up in Love is Grief. You cannot map where Grief and Love shapeshift into or overlay one another. You can't predict or protect yourself from the depths of one giving way to the depths of the other. But we know they do, don't we? We already know if we Yes to Love we and to Grief.
So we take a breath and let the terrifying exhilarating? process of improv begin.
Since we are microcosms (literally tiny universes3), through this what also becomes evident about the yes, and of our universe?
Paul M. Sutter wrote the book How To Die In Space4 that is literally about the inhospitable nature of space towards humans. I stay in conversation with cosmic life and, admittedly, I often shy away from the destructive nature of the cosmos.
No, thank you
I want cosmos and oceans teeming with life and interdependence. I want the beauty of nebula left behind by a supernova and the wonder of exoplanets with habitable zones.
I can hear the universe clearing it’s throat to say:
Yes, and Interdependence includes galactic centers of black holes that rip everything near it to shreds and marine beings eating and defending themselves against one another.
Yes, and We don't get a nebula without death - sometimes an explosive one that would incinerate anything in its path for many light-years5. We get exoplanets only after young star systems endure the smashing together of newly forming entities for eons6.
While there are many resources on the techniques and principles of improv, there is no step-by-step instruction for every improv scenario that could come up. You are only one of the many variables in a scene. You must rely on your stage-mates. You must be ready with a yes. You must welcome trust and mystery, allowing it to form you in the moment you've entered into.
Please tell me I'm not the only one screaming no, thank you to all of this.
In the context of Love, Grief has met me unexpectedly with wildness and pain. In the context of Love, I have brought Grief in - sometimes it couldn't be avoided, and sometimes the damage of the impact incinerates my intent. I have been the entity smashing the potential of a planet to bits, and I have been torn asunder. I have been the whale feasting on the life of the fish, and I have been the one who didn't realize my existence consented me to being devoured7 .
No. Every time I just want to say no.
And...I am keenly aware that if I no to Grief I no to Love.
Damn, can you hear that ache in my chest? Or is it just me?
I long for a reality where Grief is just Longing and never ripping apart. I long for a human existence where what I thought was true and good isn't smashed - no burned and pulverized into the finest ash. I ache for no more sorrow and no more pain. For tears to spring forth from joy and wonder and laughter and deeply felt adoration only - never because we harm one another or lose the ones we Love or live in the result of centuries of forced shrinking and assimilation instead of embracing our reality of being tiny cosmos.
My Longing is fueled by the Grief that shows up between you and me, between the planets forming, between the ecological relationships in every system.
In all of the formation of this whole universe, there is only one place that is ripe for our flourishing - this earth. It is us and our inability to yes, and because of fear and wounded imaginations that have made the earth the place it is today in 2024. This earth is double-bubbled with a thick atmosphere and a magnetic field strong enough to keep the space-stuff that would annihilate us mostly at bay. It's from this double-bubble we observe the sky with our naked eye and with our technologies. We haven't experienced the common violence of the universe like supernova or black holes close up. Good thing - we've created enough of our own violences on the surface. Why also need to manage cosmic ones as well?
My chest aches and my shoulders crumple at the reality of mystery that yeses baby stars, water-based life, galaxy formation, and the cooling of new star systems yet ands galaxy-ripping quasars, space rocks that hit the earth and cause extinction, and entities that were minding their business being suddenly eradicated by exploding stars. Much like improv, I want to - and often do - leave Grief to others who can honor it in ways I can't. Yet like Love, Grief touches all of us in various ways.
Grief is touching me. It's also touching you.
Yes, and so is Love.
I concede. Loss and death and ripping apart are - *sigh* - included in formation. This is the yes, and I desperately want to say no, thank you to but can't. I've been formed by it, you have been formed by it, and we know the universe has been and continues to be formed by the yes, and too.
Snap
Between your corporeal centers of confidence and creativity, you are marked with origin, with beginning. With a knowing beyond knowledge that you are of something deeply primordial, expansive, and mysterious.
You are of Love.
Love burned blue-hot with delight and longing to see you tangibly expressed, consciousness wrapped in matter and electromagnetism.
And like a good rhythm, like a dope poem, Love loved you into existence like a snap.
Your flame was lit…
This ends the preview portion of this piece.
The Astronomical Grief Hexalogy will be published with a preview for free subscribers each month of the series on the new moon. A companion post that focuses on The Forces and our anchors will go live on the full moon each month of the series and be available to all subscribers. Audio Conversations with some of our favs - like , , , and (I could go on) - will be available to paid subscribers.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Of Earth & Of Stars to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.