We Are One Person
by Barbara Worton
BARBARA HAS A FAVORITE NEBULA
It’s the Crab Nebula and
I identify with this nebula.
My astrological sign is cancer. The symbol for cancer is the crab, and this supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula got its name because scientists say it looks like the crab crushed under the feet of Hercules after it pinched his toes.
In this picture, the Crab Nebula, which was photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, is in the constellation of Taurus, moving across the universe even though it’s squished flat.
I think about these kinds of things—nebulas and galaxies and how far away they are and how sometimes they look so much like a human eye or heart or brain or DNA helix or some other natural object that we see on earth every day.
Remember that scene in National Lampoon’s Animal House where Pinto, played by Tom Hulce, says to Jennings, played by Donald Sutherland, “Okay, so that means that our whole solar system could be like one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being. This is too much! That means one tiny atom in my fingernail could be…” And Jennings finishes his sentence with “…could be one tiny little universe.”
I am not alone in my ponderings. Some scientists and philosophers—and many stoners past and present—have been pondering this “our tiny world on the tip of a finger” theory for some time.
Quick thought: if that theory is true, that makes getting a mani or pedi a catastrophically bad idea?
Seriously. Could clipping and filing the tips of our nails be the cause of natural disasters? And could baking on gel polish be the cause of climate change?
Anyway, that scene from Animal House popped into my head the other day on a phone call with a friend, Jim from Cape May. We hadn’t spoken for a while, so we did a catch-up that took us through events of about four years, which, of course, touched on the COVID pandemic.
Jim talked about his sister, a nurse, all she had seen through that global nightmare and all he had learned from her about public health. Most notably, he came to understand how interconnected we are, how the actions and health and well-being, or lack thereof, of one of us affects all of us, and how the human race is one living organism, connected to every animal, vegetable, mineral on this planet and beyond to the stars.
Astrophysicists, like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, are clear on our connection with the celestial, the terrestrial and each other. Life on earth—we, and the carbon that makes a good part of who we all are—came from the stars. Yes, “We are stardust. We are golden,” as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sang. And we are more connected and alike and dependent on the well-being of each other than many of us would like to know and accept.
