Death Valley Dreamlapse

I am miserably sick today, thanks to the mountain cedar tree’s inability to fertilize without releasing something like 47 pounds of lung-choking immunostimulatory genetic material per tree. I mean look at these evil bastards:

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Really? Is the mating efficiency of this species so low that we need to emit pollen by the dump-truck load? Evolution, we need to talk. We can do better than this.

Anyway, in my histamine-induced mucosal brain haze, this is just the kind of peaceful mind escape that I need. It’s this, or take a power drill to my sinus cavities.

Enjoy this time-lapse of the 2012 Geminid meteor shower peak as seen last December, captured from starkly beautiful Death Valley by Sunchaser Pictures.

Twinkle- Geminids Kyle Hill, who writes the blog Science-Based Life, offers some thoughts on the deeply spiritual experience of staring up on a cold night, craning for the sight of a fleeting fireball. Except for Kyle, like many out there, that spiritual experience is not connected to a religion, or to God. For the many people out there who struggle to reconcile purpose and meaning while not believing in religion, it can be a lonely, and frustrating to express these awesome experiences to others, and even to yourself. Consider this: The common screed against the godless is that awe leaves us without a divine component, profound feelings are possible, but serve no purpose, as there is none. This is what they say. But anyone, anyone who looks up at the sky and contemplates but for a moment our place in the cosmos sees right through this fallacy. To attempt to grasp the universe in your mind’s eye is fundamentally awe-inspiring, and tonight’s meteor shower was a perfect vehicle to deliver such beauty into my night. No myths need spinning, no covenants need signing. The simplest way to unfettered wonder is, as Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it, to keep looking up. It is not my place, nor the place of others, I think, to demand that any individual to accept or reject belief in higher spiritual powers, and where I come from personally is not important. But when one is armed with the power to grasp the true nature of the universe using observation and curiosity, the spiritual experience of knowing can be deeply satisfying.  And that view of the world, seen in day or at night, should be welcomed by all.
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Twinkle- Geminids

Kyle Hill, who writes the blog Science-Based Life, offers some thoughts on the deeply spiritual experience of staring up on a cold night, craning for the sight of a fleeting fireball. Except for Kyle, like many out there, that spiritual experience is not connected to a religion, or to God.

For the many people out there who struggle to reconcile purpose and meaning while not believing in religion, it can be a lonely, and frustrating to express these awesome experiences to others, and even to yourself. Consider this:

The common screed against the godless is that awe leaves us without a divine component, profound feelings are possible, but serve no purpose, as there is none. This is what they say. But anyone, anyone who looks up at the sky and contemplates but for a moment our place in the cosmos sees right through this fallacy. To attempt to grasp the universe in your mind’s eye is fundamentally awe-inspiring, and tonight’s meteor shower was a perfect vehicle to deliver such beauty into my night. No myths need spinning, no covenants need signing. The simplest way to unfettered wonder is, as Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it, to keep looking up.

It is not my place, nor the place of others, I think, to demand that any individual to accept or reject belief in higher spiritual powers, and where I come from personally is not important. But when one is armed with the power to grasp the true nature of the universe using observation and curiosity, the spiritual experience of knowing can be deeply satisfying. 

And that view of the world, seen in day or at night, should be welcomed by all.

Source: sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com