THIS HAS TO BE ONE OF THE greatest space images ever. The ‘Pale Blue Dot’ picture of Planet Earth was acquired by the Voyager 1 probe 34 years ago – from a distance of about 6 billion km (4 billion miles). It shows Earth as a single, bright blue pixel in the vastness of space. That pixel is caught within a ray of sunlight – and is part of a final sequence of frames taken by Voyager before its camera system was shut down to conserve power.
Here’s what the late CARL SAGAN (science writer and astronomer) had to say about this remarkable photo:
“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.
“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from
elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
“The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. 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 – ‘PALE BLUE DOT’ 1994
YEAH, ME TOO!
I love people
who have no idea
how wonderful they
are and just wander
around making the
world a better place.
BRAVE & BEAUTIFUL …
One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.
FREDERICK BUECHNER
OUR ONLY HOPE?
What if, instead of division, we worked towards unity?
What if, instead of playing ‘them-&-us’ games, we looked for our shared humanity in the faces of the others?
What if, instead of demonizing ‘them’ and defending ‘us’, we chose to simply love everyone?
What if we all became one human race?
What if we packed our labels away, and stopped putting each other in boxes?
What if we became ‘we’ and no one was ‘them’?
What if all of these ‘what-ifs’ were possible?
What if we could really, truly come together and love, love, love until all the hate was gone?
What if our failure to do these things is the reason why our kids have no faith in the future?
What if the future is now?
What if this is our last chance to get it right?
What if we could all wake up before we divide ourselves into so many pieces that no one can ever put us back together again?
Will you pray with me until the dream comes true … until love finds a way? Because I’m afraid of what may happen if we ever stop.
KEITH GILES – PATHEOS.COM
HELP!@#
I hate it when
I can’t figure out how
to operate the iPad
and my tech guy is asleep.
(He’s 5
and it’s past his
bedtime.)
WHO AM I?
“But
what
can
I do?
I’m
just
one
person!”
said
seven
billion
people.
STUFF & NONSENSE
The truth is, all the stuff here on earth we work SO hard to buy and accumulate does NOT mean a thing. At the end of the day, people will be cleaning out our stuff, going thru our stuff, figuring out what to do with all our stuff … this stuff we’ve spent our lives accumulating. The only thing of value that remains are the MEMORIES and what we deposit into others. May we all learn to spend less time accumulating stuff and spend way more time making memories.
NO REGRETS
Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So …
love the people who treat you right
forgive the ones who don’t
and believe that everything happens
for a reason.
If you get the chance, take it.
If it changes your life, let it.
Nobody said it would be easy.
They just promised it would be worth it.
SOURCE NOT KNOWN
GIRLS NEED MOTHERS
Somewhere inside of you is a little girl who needs a mother. Whether you have a mother or not, the need will always be there. Even if you never had one, if you didn’t experience that maternal love, there is a hole inside of you that perhaps, you didn’t even know you had.
A woman needs a mother, this much is true.
So if you’re lucky enough to have a mother living, call her, listen to her, show up if she wants you, or even if she doesn’t. Let her care, let her in, let her be a part of your life, for you are an enormous part of hers.
If you no longer have a mother, be very kind to the little girl who lives within you, she is hurting. She misses her mother more than you realise. Be gentle with her and don’t be too harsh when she is lost. She doesn’t have a mother to show her the way.
For those of you who have had a mother, who couldn’t love you the way you deserved, your heart is even more broken and bruised. There is little in this world more painful than that. Surround yourself with as much love as you can possibly find.
You deserve it so very much indeed.
You see, a mother is the source of life, the teacher of love, she is shelter, she is nurture, she is home.
Take her with you wherever you go and let her love carry on, even after she has gone. It’s part of you. She never really leaves. If you look within, you will find her there.
Hold on to that, my friend, hold on to that.
DONNA ASHWORTH – DONNAASHWORTH.COM