Exploring the All-There-Is

I've received a present that's far too good to keep to myself . . . may I share it with you?

It's 'The Edge of the Sky', the recently-published book by the  award-winning astrophysicist, Roberto Trotta.
'Reading it,' declared the BBC's 'Sky At Night' programme, 'makes you feel good'.
A sentiment with which I whole-heartedly agree.

Roberto Trotta takes the complex subject of cosmology and, by means of a vocabulary limited to the one thousand most commonly used English words, turns his chosen subject into poetry.

You think that's unlikely?  Then, let me give you a flavour . . . when the Milky Way becomes the White Road, a telescope is a Far-Seer, the Universe is known as the All-There-Is, and scientists are student-people, how do you start to describe our galaxy and all that lies beyond?

Roberto Trotta will explain:

"The White Road is made of many, many stars, most of which are too small to be seen with a Far-Seer.  It's hard to imagine how many stars are in the White Road.
If you tried to number them, and you could get a hundred done every second, it would still take you a hundred years to go through them all!
So the question that many student-people were asking was whether the White Road was all there is in the All-There-Is.  And if it wasn't, what was further out, where the White Road stopped?  Was it black, empty space going on without end, or was there something else?"

 And, page by engrossing page, with the use of arresting, basic language the reader travels out into space with the student-people.


Would I have tackled a treatise on the history of space had it been written in accepted, scientific language?
It's highly unlikely.
But, once aboard this deceptively simple spaceship, the beguiled reader is transported on an illuminating journey.

It would be foolish to claim that, by the end, I'd gained a scientific understanding of an enormously complex subject.  But, far more importantly, the book had imbued me with a sense of wonder and opened my mind to previously unconsidered questions.

Through the magic of 'The Edge Of The Sky', I, too, had become a student-person.

"Student-people," Trotta tells his readers, "are different from other people.  They spend their entire life asking questions, and as soon as they have found out the answers, they start all over again with new, harder questions  . . . The best questions for student-people are the ones that begin with Why?  These questions are also the hardest."

Questions and wonder . . . it's what our forebears had in abundance.
They marvelled at the discovery that the Earth was round . . . enthused over the steam-engine . . . listened in awe to the crackling whispers of the first radio . . . watched in incredulity when man took to the air . . . and gazed spellbound at their black-and-white television screens to witness the first moon landing.

But we, in the twenty-first century are not so easily seduced.  We're worldly and sophisticated.  We've seen it all.  We take it for granted.
Or do we?  Or should we?

In this wonderful, lyrical book the reader is given back a lost sense of wonder.  Could there be a more precious gift?

Not only that, for a self-obsessed generation, an age preoccupied with ourselves, our achievements,  and our capabilities, it's both humbling and liberating to travel out into the All-There-Is.  To reach out beyond our normal sight-line and acknowledge this far greater living space, a region in which our Home-World forms but an infinitesimal segment.

As student-people we are part of it . . . wonder at it . . . marvel at what we can scarcely comprehend . . .  and discover, to our surprise, that we're not all that matters in the All-There-Is.
What a relief!

Plato's Cave

It's a story that I'm sure you know,  but would you mind if we recall it in the lead-up to the New Year?

I'm thinking of 'Plato's Cave'.  The tale of the prisoners who were fooled by shadows.  The prisoners, chained to the cave wall, who truly believed that the flickering shadows cast on the walls in front of them were all that there was . . . that they were reality.

With their backs to the fire that was casting the shadows, and unable to see the people passing behind them, the captives had no idea as to what was creating the moving spectacle.  For them the world was one-dimensional . . .  insubstantial shadows were all that existed.

Do you remember how that the story continues?
It tells of a prisoner who broke free from his chains and rushed out into the sunlight?  Overjoyed by his discovery, he then returned to his fellow prisoners to try to explain, in the face of their incredulity and disbelief, the vibrant, three-dimensional world that awaited them outside.

It's a haunting story.
But what is Plato trying to tell us?  That we're lucky to be free?
No, surely he's suggesting that we are the prisoners . . . the self-incarcerated prisoners, captives mesmerised by shadows.

Wouldn't you agree that there's an over-riding sense of captivity at the present time . . .  we're all held captive by fear.  Be it fear of terrorism, of economics, of epidemics . . . fears specific, fears non-specific.  Fears which cast large and distorted reflections and affect us all.

We're held captive in a world reduced to intimidating shadows.
As for the chains that bind us, we've crafted them ourselves.  It isn't hard to recognise which ones bear our own personal hallmark.

I'm recalling Plato's story because it seems to hold particular significance at the start of a new cycle.

The year that's passing created many frenzied and distorted images.  Rather than carry them with us into the New Year, surely it's time to reject their power and leave the cave in search of the light?

But we're inclined to forget the all-important need for trust when stepping forward.  We look for excuses as we huddle together in the dark.
Is January, we wonder, the right time to make such a move?  The low winter sun produces a dazzling light, wouldn't it obscure the path ahead?

Then there's something else. Whilst we're attracted to the light, what it reveals can be disturbing and painful . . . there have been many such revelations in 2014.
Life may be grim and uncomfortable watching shadows, but it can offer the illusion of security.  We are seduced and beguiled by the false world we've created, we've grown attached to our chains.

In all this uncertainty, one fact is undeniable, we are more likely to step out of our cave if we do it together . . . more likely to accept the invitation of the beckoning sunlight if we move as a group rather than try to move forward on our own.  More likely to succeed if we discard past judgements and maintain the vital ingredients of love, gratitude and hope.

'Snowflakes,' wrote Vesta Kelly, 'are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together'.

I wonder what guise we'll choose as we enter the year ahead.
Will we choose to remain as isolated prisoners, ensnared by the shadows of the past?  Or will we be part of a sparkling blanket of snow, heading unfettered into the promise of the future . . . ?

Let's compare notes in a year's time and see if we made it!

Happy New Year!