Awe

May 24, 2024 By Mary van Balen Leave a Comment

Aurora: Using the Right Lens

Who would’ve guessed? Viewing the Aurora Borealis close on the heels of experiencing a total solar eclipse, both from Ohio! Not me. I read about the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights much further south than usual and looked forward to the event. But the evening arrived, and after a busy day of running errands, I had forgotten. I settled into my recliner ready for a quiet evening when an urgent shout broke into my reverie:

“Jordan! Jordan!” my neighbor yelled to his friend in the apartment above mine.

An emergency? Someone’s hurt? My phone rang: “Mary, get out here! You can see them!”

Thank goodness for my neighbors. In minutes, six of us lined up in my driveway. Chairs for everyone, but mostly we stood. I put on water for tea (It was chilly.) and called my sister and her husband.

The aurora had arrived, even in the city, and joined a bright crescent moon, planets, and stars in the clear night sky. Despite streetlamps and security lights, swaths of purple, pink, and green danced over apartments and trees.

“Look through your phone,” someone called out, and I remembered an interesting fact from articles giving instructions on when and how to watch. Auroras are the result of streams of charged particles ejected from magnetic storms on the sun and propelled into space. Some reach earth and glow with colored light when they collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms as they speed into our upper atmosphere. The rare strength of the solar storms the days before and force with which the large the particle streams were expelled from the sun pushed the aurora south. As amazing as the human eye is, the lenses in cell phones are much better at collecting light, including that emitted by the glowing particles.

Pale purplish pink hues became stunning magenta when viewed through the phones. Greens popped from soft to brilliant. So, there we stood, looking with our eyes then marveling at the sight through our phone lenses. This solar system, our home, has been exceedingly generous lately with events that encourage us to wonder.

What else awaits discovery? What else – on our planet, in the universe – emanates beauty simply by being? What windows into truth and mystery surround us? And how can we see them? What lenses might we need? I wondered about this for a few days, and the question came along as I walked along the Scioto River and saw a blue heron, tall and majestic. There he was, a pillar of peace and stillness with mallards fussing and flitting about, chasing one another away with loud honks and flapping wings that splashed in the water. The heron remained focused, and one slow, purposeful step at a time, moved through the water without disturbing its surface.

How did he see his watery world, I wondered. And what about lenses of other creatures and the ones that enhance (or cloud) my own vision?

Sometimes I use a jeweler’s loupe to examine ordinary objects. Sometimes I use lenses on my stereomicroscope to look extremely closely and discover complexity, pattern, and design of ordinary objects invisible to the naked eye.

With the help of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes we can look deeply into the universe and back in time to its beginnings. We see stars being born and galaxies speeding away from one another.

But lenses don’t always make things clearer. They can alter or obscure. Our perception can be distorted when we look with eyes, hearts, and minds clouded by prejudices, fear, and anger. Have you ever shared an experience with others and come away shaking your head when various accounts of what happened are at opposite ends of the spectrum? (Think, January 6.) Different lenes.

How, I wondered, can I “clean my lenses” and be aware of everyday wonders of creation? They needn’t be auroras or solar eclipses to inspire and enchant, revealing the Sacred simply by being. To see divinity dwelling not only in nature and creation around me but also within my own heart? To see that the Incarnation did not start with Jesus of Nazareth, but with the Big Bang—everything infused with the Spirit of the Source.

Seeing through the lens of Grace can be a challenge. A line from the play “Our Town” comes to mind. “Who,” wonders Emily while revisiting a day in her life after she had died, “who realizes the beauty and wonder of ordinary life as it is lived, moment by moment.” The stage manager answers, “The saints and poets, maybe they do some.”

How to develop such an eye? “Be present to the moment,” I think, “wide-eyed and open-hearted.” Nurture curiosity. Befriend quiet and get in touch with one’s deepest center. Cultivate the practices of wonder and awe. Look closely, beyond what we see at first glance – including people as well as the rest of creation. And discover what clouds our vision and do what we can to wipe them from the heart.

What a gift the spectacular cosmic displays have been, reminders of the Glory that surrounds us if we have the eyes and heart to see.

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: Aurora, Aurora Borealis, Aurora May 2024, Awe, centering, cosmic display, creation, curiosity, Divine within, eyes to see, How to see, Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, Northern Lights, open heart, Our Town, present to the moment, The lens of Grace, using the right lens, wonder

April 30, 2024 By Mary van Balen 4 Comments

Totality’s Gift

The long-awaited 2024 Eclipse Day arrived at our viewing location, a hotel in mid- western Ohio, with a few, high wispy clouds in a blue sky. Much better than the cloud-cover app prediction. A gentleman in the elevator expressed what the eclipse seekers staying there were hoping: “Fingers crossed that the sky stays this clear!”

Early in the morning, our family placed chairs along the side of a grassy field behind the hotel. There were nine of us, gathered from different states and from Wales. Soon the field was edged with chairs, blankets, and a popup shelter. A young man made adjustments on his sophisticated telescope/camera setup while an inventive woman tested the fit of filters she’d made from cardboard and eclipse glasses film for her cellphone and binoculars.

Once the eclipse began with barely a nibble at the lower right of the sun, glasses went on and off as the celestial event progressed. One person did some painting. Another sketched and wrote in her journal. Some played games. Many enjoyed the opportunity to use a toddler’s sidewalk chalk and contributed to drawings on the blacktop parking lot.

The mood was festive. About 30 folks from around the country – ages spanning 90 to 2 years – talked, laughed, and told stories. Two NASA employees shared eclipse glasses that became desired souvenirs and answered lots of questions not only about the eclipse but also about their work at NASA. Potters, programmers, and teachers found one another and discovered surprising connections.

The crowd held its breath and watched with glasses on as Bailey’s Beads rimmed the sun’s edge and then disappeared. Totality! Glasses came off, and a cry went up. People clapped, hugged, cried, and simply gazed at what looked like a black hole in the sky ringed with the glowing white corona. If you haven’t seen a total solar eclipse, there is no way to describe the emotional impact of the event.

I have a strange sensation of being transported into my grammar school desk-sized model of the solar system that used thin metal rods and orbs of various sizes and colors to represent it. I’m looking through the spokes radiating from the sun, trying to see it, but earth’s moon is in the way.

Today’s sophisticated animations and real-life images of planets, moons, and other astronomical bodies provide more dramatic and accurate depictions of the universe and our place in it. But, as stunning as they are, they don’t deliver the visceral impact of standing outside, feet on a patch of earth, watching the moon move across the face of the sun with my own eyes.

A total solar eclipse pulls me into that big-picture and transforms my perspective. Suddenly, I don’t visualize myself walking in my neighborhood, a park, or even my favorite place, along the ocean. Instead, I’m hovering in the solar system. For an instant I have no thoughts or observations but simply a deep sense the wholeness of everything. It surrounds me. It dwells within me.

The event intensifies my amazement at the cosmos’ magnificent expanse and our planet’s minuscule presence in it. And me? Humans? We are less than a speck in space. Humbling. And distressing when I consider that humans are mostly unable to see our oneness as a race living on a planet that needs our cooperation to continue supporting us. People are unable to get along, obsessed with differences and the need of some to dominate and control others.

The totality provides a different possibility: For a few precious hours, the wonder of the eclipse offered a respite from the fear and anger that permeates much human interaction today. There was no hatred of others for simply being themselves.

Instead, we were connected by a sense of awe. People who gathered in that field related as fellow humans. Respectful. Appreciative. Some learned how to make a lattice with their fingers or to use a pinhole to see crescent shadows. The telescope guy welcomed others to look at his camera screen. We didn’t view one another as members of opposing political parties or of different faiths or of none, but as other humans willing to travel to experience an incredible sight.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the moon’s passing in front of the sun wasn’t the shadow it cast on the earth. Or the 360° sunset. Or the confusion of animals and birds who thought it was night. Or the crescent shaped shadows or shimmering shadow bands. Or visible red prominences or dark sunspots.

It wasn’t how quickly the temperature dropped as the moon covered the sun or how quickly the temperature rose when even the tiniest sliver of light peeked out past the moon’s edge—revealing the power of our closest star. Or even the dazzling “diamond ring” that, for a second, stunned with brilliance, bursting out along the edge of the moon signaling the end of totality.

All this was incredible. Mind-blowing. Exhilarating. But the most amazing effect may have been that for those hours, a collection of humans of various political and religious leanings, of different prejudices and socioeconomic backgrounds, from different places, gathered amicably to celebrate and marvel at creation.

At the end of the afternoon and during the next morning as I watched people loading suitcases into cars and returning home, I wondered if the unity we shared for those hours would have any lasting effect on how we live our lives. Will any of us be more welcoming of diversity? More respectful? More compassionate? Less controlling? More kind? More aware of the fragility of our planet?

I think not. We will return to a world where people experience the constant stress of being “different” from those in power. People will continue to suffer from wars waged over land, ideology, resources, or simply a desire for power and personal aggrandizement. Change is painfully slow.

I pondered how to encourage change: Speak up for human dignity when conversations demean others. Respect scientists and their work. Contribute to politicians and campaigns that support human rights and care of the environment. Speak truth to power if only through emails, calls, or signing petitions. It boils down to doing what you can, where you are, small as that seems. To do good work. To care for the common good. To put love and kindness into the world.

My experience of the totality offers an additional practice: Look long and listen deeply to the natural world. Practice AWE. Allow yourself to be amazed by creation. A flower. A bird in flight. Refreshing rain. Weeds poking up through cracks in sidewalks, roads, and walls. Develop a contemplative approach to life that reveals the connectedness of all things and the Sacred Presence in it.

My daughter once said she learned about the interdependence of all things by spending childhood hours wading in the creek behind our house, noticing and studying the creatures in, on, and above the water. What might you do to let creation nurture your soul and inform your living?

Thank you, spectacular eclipse, for doing just that.

Photo credits: Images of the eclipse from Jarred Keener. All other photos taken by Mary van Balen

Resource

In case you weren’t able to view the totality, here’s a link to NASA’s live coverage. Enjoy! 2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of NASA

Solar systems and Galaxies

Our solar system (the only one officially called that) is one of an estimated 3,200 planetary systems (stars with planets orbiting them) in our galaxy, the Milky Way.
An older estimate of 100-200 billion galaxies in the observable universe has been expanded to 2 trillion galaxies using new images (from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telecsopes) and research methods.

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: Awe, compassion, cosmos, creation, diversity, encourage change, human dignity, inclusivity, interdependence, Presence, sustainabliity, total solar eclipse, Totality, wholeness

September 30, 2023 By Mary van Balen 2 Comments

NASA: Streaming Wonder

Wonder has been hard to come by lately. For me anyway. Sometimes I’m more tuned in, open and attentive. But with national and global news, I’ve been overwhelmed, and dullness settled in. On a morning walk I did see a hairy-capped acorn that drew me to stop and look closely. I stuck it in my pocket to send to a great-nephew with whom I share such things.

Still, all in all, I’ve been moving through days focused on a writing project, completing a couple leg exercise sets daily, and walking enough laps around the neighborhood to meet my step goal.

Last Sunday started out much the same when a cell phone “ding” alerted me to a short text on the family thread: “Happy OSIRIS-REx Return Day!!!!,” followed by a NASA link.

What was “OSIRIS-REx” and where was it returning from? I followed the link and forgave myself for not recognizing the mission: It began in 2016! A lot has happened on earth in the past seven years. After a quick read through the article, I clicked on NASA TV and virtually joined my family in watching the drama unfold.

Once again, NASA and the teams that work with them streamed a sense of wonder, joy, and hope into my living room.

Wonder

Wonder at how their engineers design such a craft

It traveled for a year to orbit the sun, then returned close to Earth, using its gravity to bend its trajectory, lining up with the asteroid Bennu’s orbit and continuing the journey. In 2018 it began mapping the surface of Bennu looking for a good place to collect samples. When it did in late in October 2020, the collection was what what a NASA commentator called a “pogo stick” operation – A quick contact of the robotic arm with the soft, rocky surface to collect bits of the asteroid’s pebbles and dust, then a pull back.

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
Robotic arm briefly touched asteroid

In 2021 OSIRIS-REx (sometimes referred to by NASA experts as “O-REx.” You’ve gotta love their way with endearing nicknames) started home.

Then, September 24, 2023 the craft flew close enough to earth to release the sample-bearing capsule that streaked toward Earth at 27,000 mph, eventually slowed to 11 mph by the bright parachute that deployed without a hitch, and then landed where expected! Remarkable.

Wonder at how scientists will tease information about the origin of our planet from those bits of asteroid

They are hopeful that O-REx’s cache will provide new insights into the vast cosmos and it’s beginning. Whatever we learn, it will expand our knowledge and experience of the universe. The James Webb Space Telescope continues to give us stunning glimpses of deep space. Even the “closeup” bits we can see with our own eyes, like a Super Moon shining through a break in clouds, make my heart beat faster.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said that we meet God in matter. That has been my spiritual experience since childhood and seemed evident despite dualist teachings to the contrary.

Ilia Delio writes that for Teilhard, “matter is the incarnating presence of divinity; God is present in matter and not merely to matter.”

Teilhard also wrote that nothing is profane if one had eyes to see. How significantly the current space exploration and scientific advances have expanded what we can “see.”

Scientist and theologian Judy Cannato wrote of the challenge this presents: “The new cosmology can upset our old truths as it challenges us to adopt a novel vision of life. Taking a look at a new paradigm will always expose our illusions and bring about a confrontation with our fears … like Einstein, we can choose to fudge our own equations, living in one world while praying in another. Or we can endeavor to reconcile science and faith within ourselves allowing them not only a peaceful coexistence but a mutual resonance that permits us to live a life filled with radical amazement.”

It’s a call to wonder!

Joy

Joy in effort, beauty, and being

Joy and enthusiasm emanated from Jim Garvins, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s chief scientist, who was in Utah for the capsule’s landing. Throughout the broadcast his smile and enthusiasm were contagious. Smiles covered the faces of those in Mission Control as they watched the successful conclusion to OSIRIS-REx’s journey. The face of the correspondent beamed as she covered the return from just a few miles away. Everyone involved was jubilant. Local elementary and high school students were thrilled to have something so momentous happening in their backyard.

In his book, Awe, Dacher Keltner writes of things that move us to tears including beauty of all types and “awareness of vast things that unite us with others.” Those familiar with this column may remember columns about other NASA missions that moved me to tears: Cassini’s final descent into Saturn’s atmosphere, sending images until its final moment. Perseverance’s landing on Mars. The successful launch and final unfolding of the James Webb telescope.

Tears welled in my eyes again as I watched not only the landing of OSIRIS-REx’s capsule, but of the careful transfer to the temporary clean room.

Hope

Hope in the ability of human beings to cooperate and accomplish extraordinary things together

NASA and worldwide space agencies are good at this. The James Webb is one example. So is O-REx. The mission brought together numerous organizations including the University of Arizona, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, and the Utah Test and Training Range.

Hope for a future of respect for all people

The highly visible role women played in the recovery of the capsule recalled NASA’s ongoing commitment to creating an inclusive culture in the organization. It strives to celebrate and support diversity, recognizing that every person brings gifts to be shared. In these days, when fear-mongering and the violence it engenders is on the rise, NASA’s efforts to expose the lies of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other “isms” and “phobias” that plague the world are welcome. They provide an example of how humankind can move forward together.

Hope for commitment to the common good

NASA will not horde the precious asteroid samples for its scientists but will distribute up to 30% to scientists around the globe. The remainder will be kept at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (and White Sands) for other scientists and for future generations of scientists who will have different questions and more advanced technologies to help answer them. (I think this cooperative spirit and the consideration of future needs is common among scientists. It’s why archaeologists, with their long view, excavate only a section of a site.)

Gratitude

Just as the hairy bur oak acorn broke into my imagination during an otherwise “inattentive” walk, the return of OSIRIS-REx’s capsule full of asteroid bits pushed aside dullness and filled my heart with joy, wonder, and hope. Then, without another word, OSIRIS-REx changed course and headed off on a journey deep into space. (It is now called OSIRIS-APEX or Osiris-Apophis Explorer, after the asteroid it will encounter next: Apophis) We will hear back from it in 2029.

Meanwhile, for expanding my horizons. For reminding me of creation’s wonders near at hand and far away. For uncovering the connectedness of everything. For these gifts, I again say “Thank you” to NASA and all its partners.