Out of this world

One of my favorite evening pastimes is to stargaze from the big platform in our wildflower meadow.  It's a quiet opportunity to take in the vastness of our solar system, our galaxy, our universe...to contemplate my relative insignificance in God's grand scheme.  This evening meditation always helps to put my seemingly insurmountable and all-consuming challenges into humbled perspective.   

And then, just as I am about to become one with space and time, to transcend this Earthly mortal existence, a piece of space-junk goes tumbling by.  And there I am once again with my butt firmly and pragmatically planted in my ordinary lawn chair on my ordinary platform here on Earth.  

It's an interesting juxtaposition of activities, simultaneously stargazing and space-junk-gazing, and it plays with my emotions.  At one moment I am pondering the relative irrelevance of my existence, while the next moment I see that I, along with my fellow humans, have recklessly set thousands of pieces of garbage into orbit around the only home we'll ever have.  I feel sheer wonderment over what we humans can do along with utter disgust over what we humans have done.   

If you've ever stargazed, chances are quite good that you've seen plenty of space-junk.  Here is a fabulous  website for tracking everything - galaxies, planets, space debris - in your nighttime skies. 
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Needless to say, I can't take credit for the photo...it's from spaceimages.com