When Galaxies Collide

Hubble Telescope (Stars are forming in the light blue areas!)

Indulge a flair for grandiosity for a moment. The physical world is, after all, a mirror of the spiritual one, and we really are made of the stuff of the stars. Anyway, it occurred to me this morning that a new relationship between two people is a lot like the collision of two immense star systems.

“Trapped in their mutual orbit around each other,” NASA’s report of one such meeting says, “these two galaxies will continue to distort and disrupt each other. Eventually, billions of years from now, they will merge into a single, more massive galaxy.”

When these two pools of light come together, clouds of luminous dust form at the edges of the joining and filaments of energy are sent out in every direction for hundreds of thousands of light years—truly an echo heard down the ages. The shape of each system changes as new forces exert their pull. Worlds cease to exist, vaporized under the intense pressure. New stars are born, the dark sky lights up, and eventually the two unite into a larger, still more radiant whole—or do they? What if the core of each star system remains whole, even as it enters into some new symmetry with the other that, from a distance, only appears to be a single shining entity?

The thing about galaxies is that their light and substance are concentrated at their core; that’s where the attractive forces are strongest, the brilliance most incandescent. People are like that, too: at the core of their being resides the soul, that eternal source of light and life from which spring spiritual energy, deep knowledge, great wisdom. So when two souls venture into close orbit, one with another, strong forces begin to act on them, energy is created and released, new realities and insights form even as old ideas and habits are given up, and all those who are near them are affected. And at the center of their relationship, the individual souls remain, even though from a distance it may seem that a larger, brighter reality has come into being.

I was thinking about all of this because of a conversation with a new friend, who said she realized she had been looking for love in all the wrong places (with due respect to Johnny Lee): relying on others to make her feel loved, sacred, beautiful; when all along those things had to come from inside her own being. The thought resonated with me as I realized that I, too, had been relying on others for validation, that my sense of confidence was rooted, not within me, but in others’ reactions to me. Maybe one reason I have missed Amelia so much is that, despite my own sense of inner strength and resources, still I had come to rely on her for my sense of my own value—a reflected reality instead of one that shines from the inside.

All of which brings one back to those deep issues of purpose and identity: Who am I, really? What is my purpose in the world, and my value to myself and to others? And where does love really stem from?

The thought that came up was to look at all the blessings in my life and to reflect that those evidences of divine love are a part of me, and came my way not because of anything worthwhile I’ve done or because I look good in a business suit (which I do, by the way…) or because I have a sense of humor (some…a very few…people think I do). No, blessings come because that’s what God does; He loves me, as He loves all His creation. If the One Who made everything loves me, then maybe it’s OK for me to love me, too. By the same token, when I have been most angry at Him, trying my very best to push Him out of my life, He has refused to budge. He even found a way to tell me, straight up, that I could say whatever I wanted and He was not going to go away, because He understood my fear and my rage and it was all all right. But that’s another story.

Without pretending to have any answers, it nevertheless seems true that when this kind of confidence becomes a part of one’s inmost being, and all the doubts about one’s own worth or capacity have been replaced with reliance on a loving God as the source of one’s being, then relationships can develop from strength to strength; and from a position of strength each helps the other to develop, delights in their progress and also one’s own, and each has the chance truly to discover and realize their full potential. Each has a brilliant core of light which can be shared and, ultimately, united into something greater than the separate parts.

Or so it seemed this morning. It was something like that.

“Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.” Bahá'u'lláh

Comments

[kamell]

i think the this is truly fascinating information.
it kind of gives us some eye opening on what will probaly happen to us sooner or later. although i just recently got into the whole astromony thing , i already thing that it is truly an overwhelming field.the reason i say this is because there is so much to know and so much that we dont know. thanks to people like yourselves, we have a chance to get some eye opening.
feel free to write back, it would be my pleasure
thank you kamell