To Infinity and Beyond

For the past few weeks my students and I were exploring the cosmos. I may have gone a little overboard. I pelted them with asteroids (bean bags) when we landed on Mercury. I showered them in acid rain (spray vinegar water) in Venus. We touched the soil (ground red chalk) on Mars. We felt the heat (HotHands in a helmet) in Jupiter. And we even created an ice ring around Saturn! By the end of the week, one of my students asked me if I had actually gone to all these planets to collect these things!

The more we dove in, the more profoundly clear it became to all of us how precious the existence of life is. So many factors had and have to come into play for us to have an atmosphere with just the right amount of sunshine, water, mineral-rich soil, lunar tides just to make life as we know it live. We’re on the only planet in this solar system where we can have fresh air to breathe, clean water to drink, healthy food to eat, natural spaces to roam and revere and yet lots of us squander it. 

We’re at a critical moment for humanity to sync back up to the natural cycles and restore Earth to her glory. Yes, some of us and the elements themselves can be crude and cruel, especially us primates. But I find more often than not, the Earth and her Earthlings, you included, are awe-inspiring. I'm grateful to be alive and to be inextricably connected to all life. I'm inspired and honored to be able to think, to love, to evolve, to innovate and create. And I couldn’t be doing that on any other planet in this solar system.

In the grand scheme, we are infinitesimal. And our problems, even smaller.

But when I look into the eyes of another-- especially little ones-- I see the whole universe in there. I see a reason to keep forging ahead, making this a love-filled, heathy, safe, peaceful, joyful planet for us all and the generations to come. My hope is that as we continue our cosmic journey ahead in this space and time we all find those reasons to do the same and be the reason others want to stay here too.