Heaven's Wrinkle - Susan Tweit

 Looking at the heavens places me in time and space - and beyond
them.  Gazing at the stars, I look through heaven's wrinkle; the
light I see now represents their past, having traveled many years
across space to reach my eyes here on earth; the light they are
emitting now will be visible only in some future, years away.

I and all the other lives on Earth are connected to the stars, held
together by gravity, the invisible glue that defines our universe,
and bound elementally by a common material: stardust.  This
atomic grit of interstellar space paints dark clouds on the Milky
Way, condenses itself into swirls of gravity-bound suns and 
planets, and provides the minerals bounded by the push and pull
of electrical charges into the molecules that form our cells.  Like
stardust and other materials of life itself, we are in constant
motion, changing shape as we pass through our lives, and after
the makings of our bodies break down and are recycled,
rearranged into other forms of life.  The stars remind me of
where I come from and who I am.

Susan J. Tweit
from -Walking Nature Home

with thanks to Beyond the Fields We Know
for post and incredible photo!