Astronomical Grief: The Juicy Terms & Conditions
First in a Hexalogy
Before we dive in together, let's orient ourselves around recurring words you will find throughout this cycle. We'll also explore some contextual science-y stuff that makes it all really interesting. 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.
Words
from Oxford Dictionary
as·tro·nom·i·cal
/ˌastrəˈnämək(ə)l/
adjective
1 relating to astronomy.
2 (of an amount) extremely large.
grief
/ɡrēf/
noun
deep sorrow, especially that caused by someone's death.
trouble or annoyance.
ex·plo·ra·tion
/ˌekspləˈrāSHən/
noun
the action of traveling in or through an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it.
thorough analysis of a subject or theme.
The Four Forces
In physics there are four things that govern the interactions of basically everything1. These are called fundamental forces, because to date the way everything - and I do mean everything - interacts cannot be reduced down further than this. These forces came after the universe began, but very very very soon after according to the scientific origin story.
I learned from the inimitable Dr. Moiya McTier2 that as we worldbuild, things get particularly interesting when we borrow from what already exists, and stretch it into something fantastic.
The Forces that establish the context within this Astronomical Grief series are influenced by the actual fundamental forces, though they are not carbon copies. Stretch with me. Remember, we are exploring and feeling our way through this. I'm right here with you.
The Love Force
like Gravitational Force
Love. It tethers you to the earth. It has been holding you since you got here and has never let you go3. It allows water to flow and atmosphere to exist. It has infinite range. It goes further than you could imagine. It draws us together and determines motion - even of massive objects, but also of light. Love forms structures - from the structures of a universe to the structure of the relationship between you and me.
The All-Light Force
like the Electromagnetic Force
If you remember my issue The Luminous Human, light is more than the miniscule sliver of visible electromagnetism humans can see. All-Light is expansive and varied and not centered on humans or our experience in any way. It is itself and we gotta get in where we fit in. I'm particularly picking up the point that this force "works across infinite distances". Yes. And it's electric AND magnetic. It can be seen AND it's invisible. It's All-Light.
The Alchemical (or Magic) Force
like the Weak Nuclear Force
Alchemy or magic - whichever you prefer, I will use them interchangeably - literally changes one thing to another. Protons change to neutrons. Quarks change their direction. We shift the reality around us with the alchemy of perspective or the magic of agreement. The cracking open or the knitting together of elements and energies - what else is this but alchemy, but magic?
The Grief Force
like the Strong Nuclear Force
Grief often presents when we are close to something - a desire, a being, a story. The closer we are, the stronger the grief. And even at the smallest scale, Grief has such strength that when we are suddenly no longer close, we feel ripped apart - because we have been. There is a tear that isn't easily tended to or mended without intentional time, care, and (re)connection. Grief also shows up as longing, in some mystical way connecting us to what we don't have yet, but are imagining. And not the imagining led by our minds; it's the imagining that is led by the very stuff our souls are made of.
But First, Love
a pre-creation narrative
Grief doesn't start with itself. Grief was called, birthed, cracked, or grown into existence from what already was. We know grief because we knew something else first, and now that something else is no longer as we’ve known it.
In many creation stories darkness was there before "the beginning". So…
What if Love was the darkness and Grief was the beginning?
That doesn't sound comforting, I imagine. But you know, sometimes grief isn't a wailing, a shattering, or even a separation. Sometimes grief is a pang, a desire for what's missing, for what could be but isn't yet. So what if Love, in all it's glorious darkness, felt a pang and was moved to create Hydrogen?
Wait what? Hydrogen?
Friend, we are starting from before the beginning. Hydrogen is essential to building the universe4. And, apparently, universe building is a slow, billions-of-years-long process. So Love In All It's Glorious Darkness brings forth Hydrogen and for a time unknown, unfathomable, and unmeasurable by us they are themselves together. Then it happens again.
Another pang.
But this time, it's shared.
What does this do for Love In All It's Glorious Darkness to share grief for the first time? What happens when Hydrogen and Love pang together, having a shared desire for what is not yet?
This sharing this connection this wonder that is Love+Hydrogen wants something to expand into.
Enter Energy.
Now listen folks, I don't know all the ins and outs of how this worked exactly but, in my sanctified imagination5, the presence of Grief over what-is-not-yet-but-could-be mingles with Love, Hydrogen and Energy in a way that causes an expanding, an illumination, a birthing of myriad material, forces, and awareness over an expansion of time we can hardly measure.
So before the beginning was Love In All It's Glorious Darkness. And the beginning began because of Grief.
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.
I researched the fundamental forces of physics with ChatGPT, Wikipedia, and NASA https://science.nasa.gov/universe/overview/forces/.
She’s great. https://www.moiyamctier.com/
Crystal Bennet Harris is who I’m reference with this idea, as she speaks this way of gravity. Bringing my awareness to the steadiness of gravity and it holding us since we got here is something I’ve been so deeply comforted by. I’m grateful for who Crystal is and how she gathers us with beauty and kindness, humanity and magic.
You can learn more about hydrogen’s role in universe building from several sources, including Wikipedia and How The Universe Works, Season 11, Episode 3
If you are unfamiliar, this is a term used often by preachers in the Black American - often charismatic - Church. It denotes it’s own speculative creative nonfiction, a reading between the lines and filling out the text with story in way particular to the Black spiritual experience and expression.
Just...wow...
“In the beginning was grief” changes my relationship with born again culture in ways that I am jubilant about.