Sometimes reading the news can actually bring about a poetic experience.When reading that a planet has been discovered which is probably made out of carbon, making it a silently orbiting diamond, my whole being opened to an immense sense of stillness, space and glimmering refinement. Of course this was facilitated by the image accompanying the story, which drew me to the article in the first place.
The sense of being held by black space has always been strangely comforting to me. Rather than feeling insignificant and small - as in many a sense I am (or should I say, we are, in the big sense of things) - it makes me feel part of something. Which clearly we are, although it is all too easy to forget.
In relation to these news I read that the ancient Greeks (always the reference when describing something really old or wise, or better: both) meant that diamonds were the tears of gods - or bits of stars falling from the sky. Guess they weren't quite so wrong after all.
I can't help but be reminded of Joni Mitchell's lyrics from so long ago:
We are stardust,
Billion year old carbon,
We are golden.
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.
Love the magic of being made of the same stuff as stars - a magic supported by hard science, for once.
With the part about getting back to the garden, I agree. Only we are the garden all the time.
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