Sublime

I love you. If you’ve come this far, that’s all I can say. I love you and I love you and I love you, on battlefields, in shadows, in fading ink, on cold ice splashed with the blood of seals. In the rings of trees. In the wreckage of a planet crumbling to space. In bubbling water. In bee stings and dragonfly wings, in stars. In the depths of lonely

In the early 1900s a Serbian scientist named Milutin Milanković studied the Earth’s position relative to other planets and came up with the theory of ice ages that we now know is accurate: The gravitational pull of the sun and moon gently affect the Earth’s motion and tilt toward the sun. During parts of this cycle—which can last tens of thousands

“The Big Ship” by Brian Eno

But Thomas Hart, who still feared death’s sting, was grieving in his pew under the halted moons. Weak light shone on the brass plaque bolted to the coffin: ANNE MARGARET MACAULAY. So that varnished pine contained her flushed cheeks, walking shoes, prudence, preference for Yorkshire tea, shyness, cuttings of African violet, habit of testing the heat

Some people are drawn to science by their drive to understand, but what I have always loved most is how science shows us what we don’t know, how little we understand of the world even as we’re inextricably a part of it. I didn’t want to answer questions but discover mysteries instead—mysteries with tantalizing possibilities, theories and hypotheses

As Carl Sagan wrote in The Demon-Haunted World (Ballantine Books, 1997): Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of