Posted by Davin Flateau on 29 May 2005 at 10:22 am.
Filed under General, Astronomy.
Late spring and early summer is a special time in Kansas. The warm weather and long days with the sun high in the sky invigorate everything with needed energy. In just a few days, endless expanses of wheat fade from a growing green to a mature amber. A constant but invisible wind fans out across the prairie, rippling across a golden ocean. The rolling waves of wheat spread out unimpeded for miles. The beauty of the yearly spectacle is also a signal to everyone who sees it: Harvest is near.
As the sun makes its steady retreat, the wheat disappears into night. And in the darkness, another invisible wind is blowing. Electromagnetic waves of light from the ocean of space – the endless stars, planets, galaxies and nebulae — have traveled unimaginable distances to finally shower down upon us. It’s beautiful and awe inspiring, and like the wheat, these waves also carry a message: A Harvest awaits.
The priceless harvest of knowledge and awareness through studying the Universe can be ours. The wisdom that the stars provide is ripe for the picking. Let our telescopes, mathematics, and our very minds reap the heavens. Science will be our machine for separating the kernel of truth from the chaff of self-delusion and confusion. Every so often, we’ll look upon the harvest with pride: a hint of our origins, of what’s yet to come, and the place our species has in the future of this vast cosmos.
It will be a valuable crop.
Davin Flateau
