Amazing, to me, the stories
of "stars" illustrate a perfect
description of different realities from different perspectives.
Rumi, a 13th century Persian poet, imagined us twirling from nothing, but originating from the universe.
Connie Barlow, an acclaimed, contemporary author of scientific books and an Unitarian Universalist writes of stars in a sacred way, Evolutionary Spirituality. However her information is always based on good science.
Finally a explanation of stars and their formation by technically correct and decidedly scientific NASA community.
Poetic Reality
"We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust"
Rumi
Mystic and Spiritual Reality
Gifts from the Stars
Since 1957, scientists have known that all chemical elements (other than the simplest hydrogen and helium) were created not In the Beginning — not at the moment of the Big Bang — but very much later, and in the depths of massive stars.
All the carbon and calcium in our bodies, all the silicon and oxygen in sand and computer chips — all these elements, every single atom, came into existence inside a star.
Imagine that! Inside a star! For many of us moved by the cosmic epic offered by science, there is no realization more magnificent than this: We know that we are stardust — recycled stardust from the generations of stars that preceded the birth of our own sun. .......
Then, rebounding in a supernova explosion of unimaginable brightness, the remaining heavy elements churn into existence — all the gold-leaf in an ancient Koran, all the silver in a
Hanukkah menorah, all the copper in a bronze Buddha, all the tin in Christmas tinsel. All the complex atoms in your body and everything around you were at one time streaming away from just such a dying star.
This is truly a miracle of creation. The birth of chemical elements manifests divine creativity, however one may think of God. Does it not make sense to celebrate this common reality
We can begin by telling the story of stardust in ways that inspire and delight. And we can further cultural wisdom by weaving into this story the teaching of values and virtues. What emerges will be parables of the new Cosmology
*********** Published in the Winter 2002 issue of EarthLight magazine, the editorial note by Connie Barlow following The Great Story Parable http://www.thegreatstory.org/BuddhaBowl.html
Scientific Reality
Big Bang
The Big Bang created all the matter and energy in the Universe. Most of the hydrogen and helium in the Universe were created in the moments after the Big Bang. Heavier elements came later.
Supernovae
The explosive power of supernovae creates and disperses a wide range of elements. The gold used in jewelry and the titanium used in light-weight eyeglass frames were formed in supernovae. Supernovae also provide the iron in your blood.
Small Stars
Small stars fuse hydrogen into helium, and then fuse helium into carbon and nitrogen. Carbon is a basic building block of life and nitrogen is a part of all proteins – essential to life.
Cosmic Rays
The nuclei of the elements formed in the big bang, stars, and supernovae rain down on us from space in the form of cosmic rays. Lithium, used in watch batteries, comes partly from cosmic rays.
Large Stars
Large stars make heavy elements as well as light elements through the process of fusion in their cores. For example, large stars create the calcium in your bones and the oxygen you breathe, the silicon in the soil, and the sulfur that’s in your hair .
Imagine the Universe! is a service of the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), Dr. Alan Smale (Director), within the Astrophysics Science Division (ASD) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
All three realities illustrate such synchronicity. How could a 13th century poet, a spiritual scientist, and the technologically advanced scientific community of NASA each give us such profound realities but certainly different written expressions. Amazing to me.
