One thing that all astronauts seem to have in common is the awe at witnessing our earth from afar. They speak of the deep emotion and tenderness they felt in the moment and the lasting perspective shift. They mention the thin blue line of our fragile atmosphere, the thing protecting our precious planet from the onslaught of space to make life possible. The same sky that appears to those of us on earth as infinite, everlasting and indestructible. While we enjoy the sky and its many stories―the dawn, the multihued sunsets, the star-studded night sky, and the enchanting moon―we don’t really think about the sky itself. It’s such a constant that it’s often invisible to us. We think it has always been there and it will always be there.
But the astronauts see it differently. They know what’s on the other side. Their veil of illusion has been lifted, making them aware of our small yet important part in maintaining or breaking this natural order. They know how fragile this nourishing blue sky actually is.
Certain life events have the power to show us our version of the delicate blue sky full of similar paradoxes. Each of us will experience these mind-bending and soul-altering events at some point in our lives. Childbirth and loss of a loved one are two examples that come to mind. They will make things more visible and impossible to take for granted. They will highlight the life-giving qualities of something alongside a sharp reminder of its fragility. They will pluck us away from our everyday to shove us in the presence of the divine. They will create a desire to tend to something deeper alongside a primordial reminder of our impermanence. They will create anxiety and discomfort.
If we sit long enough in this discomfort though, we’ll see a kernel of fearlessness amidst fear. We will see more clearly the things we have control over and those that we don’t. We will realize how truly miniscule we are compared to the limitless life. But we might also see that each of our lives has significance and a unique assignment the way each cell in the body does. And that this significance lies In shaping ourselves and contributing in ways only we can; in tending to our unique little footprint in time and space with integrity and love, not in the outsized actions and wins that popular culture might have us believe. Life asks us to tend to only our footprint, no more and no less, not because it wont fade but because before it fades it will impact another and through them another.
When you wake up to your own realization of the delicate blue sky, pause long enough to soak-in the questions that animate you. Note your version of the delicate blue sky. Note what you are called to tend to. Because when we each tend to our small footprint, we ensure every version of the delicate blue sky is tended to across time.
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
…There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”― Carl Sagan, Astronomer and Astrophysicist. Pale Blue Dot, 1994
