Considering Connection on Wednesday...

So I am still waiting for Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson to see that I hope to chat about life, the universe, and everything but he is a busy guy.

In the meantime, there are so many things to do. My world is a web woven daily of multiple part-time efforts. Last year, I started to resign from volunteer positions in favor of furthering opportunities for billable work. At this point in my life, anything I am asked to lend my skills and talents to is of value so saying no is a challenge. But I also need time for things like marketing myself, fulfilling the obligations and duties I am involved in well, walking the dog, reading, knitting, a meal here and there, friends and family, and my own creative output. Notice sleep is not on the list.

All of the things I do now are linked to the primary identity of poet that I uphold and that is a blessing. And many of the organizations, projects, programs, initiatives, are connected in some way, or could be when I view through my lens.

I have a particular skill in connecting people to their mutual advantage and I am fully steeped in the premise of collaboration. We are all connected in ways that have value and purpose. Even the fact that I am participating in the 10-Day Journey of the Heart was born of my connective tissue and is strengthening my reach to new people at an astounding pace.

I feel connected to the entourage of seekers that is on the journey to Turkey, in the same way when any of my friends go on spiritual retreat, I feel I receive some of the vibration to benefit me as well. I link to their force and my own is bolstered through empathy and the mystery of the universe. We are all capable of this level of compassion, empathy, and vibration. We just need to be aware. It is another aspect of accepting that Grace that is everywhere; in the recognition of it we are soothed and supported. 

So a small team of curious humans climbed into a tin can and were propelled through the atmosphere halfway around the world and I can almost smell the food they are eating when I look at the photos. And by sharing my responses to their reports, I am connected to people I have never met face-to-face but who are watching over me from India, Ireland, Malaysia, Turkey, the UK, throughout the US, and from across town.

Simply through a small class at the Downtown Writers Center, I am now connected to a group of new residents to Syracuse, recently here from Cuba. I share my connections with the community at large and they are now not so isolated and I am resuming use of the Spanish I buried through no practical application for 40 years. And I have a new circle of friends in the massive Venn Diagram that is my life, as well as all of our lives. All this before I even begin to consider the interconnectedness of the universe and its elements. I read Dr. Tyson and Commander Chris Hadfield to try to integrate the huge ramifications.

A friend in Australia can take an on-line class with me we are poets together, in spite of 14 hours' difference in the human contraption of time and miles of geography between us. I can connect with a dear college friend and resume the relationship after many years of living rather separately. I compose poems with a crew of poets from every crevice of the US on Facebook. And I had conversations just this week with dear ones in Orlando, FL, Oakland and Chico, CA, maintaining the love between us through the wires. I had better renew my passport. I think opportunities will abound.

Thank you, Alexander Graham Bell, Mark Zuckerberg (happy 30th birthday), Jill Ouikahilo, and all of you who have chosen to read these words. I know you are there. I check my stat counter regularly. And you are a rainbow, a beautiful arc over this world of ours.    

Why I Want to Talk with Neil deGrasse Tyson & Why I Believe He Would Enjoy the Same

Yesterday I was speaking with my dear friend and inspiration, Jill Ouikahilo (www.44hearts.org), as we often do, sharing our wonders, our fears, our world as cinema, our marvel at the universe. As we neared the bottoms of our respective tea cups, draining the liquid, along with the living truth that is life, Jill declared that she is claiming her place in consciousness. At first I cracked up, then I realized that I was witnessing her do so in countless and remarkable ways. I asked her what she meant by her statement. Of course, that was a whole trajectory that rocketed us to a myriad of considerations.

I have been watching Cosmos and relishing every moment; not just because I have a mind crush on Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson but because I watched the original series and am a curious human trying to develop a peace in my heart and mind with being conscious and human in the universe. In fact, my next book, due out in early 2015, is rooted in these questioning moments. Its title indicates my mindset well: Psalter: The Agnostic's Book of Common Curiosities. 

I met Dr. Tyson briefly when he lectured in the Rosamond Gifford Lecture Series in Syracuse a few years back. I already was a fan and felt like a kid meeting a rock star. He was much more welcoming and humorous than I imagined. And he is really tall.

I noticed that he signs books with fountain pens filled with black ink, which he also carries in a leather pen case. Who knew there were pen cases?! He was instantly even more cool. I commented that the case was terrific. I needed one; many of my pens leak often. He asked me how I carry my fountain pens and I said I just throw them in my purse. He responded, "Of course they leak! They are angry." He was right. I bought a case of my own. I remember him every time I pull a pen out from its little berth.

That was only one small slice of wisdom I have received from Dr. Tyson that has impressed me to the point of change or awareness. I can listen for hours and be informed, amused, and amazed. My capacity to understand science is greater because the way that he communicates knowledge is attainable and enthusiastic. I grew up with a scientist father and we spoke different languages. Our common language was love but the others were worlds apart: poetry, science, God, golf.

Watching Cosmos this time around, I feel more equipped; however, the other evening, Dr. Tyson held a small blue globe between his fingers as he asked if we could imagine that everything in the universe was once contained in that small a space. I responded out loud, "NO! I can't imagine..."

This stage of my life is so marvelous. I used to be phobic of the universe. The vast, inexplicable place and purpose were frightening. Now I do not seek answers and am amused that so many people do. The universe is one spectacular Zen koan, a star-filled question with no real answers. And by some miracle, we are in the consciousness field, able to notice and speculate, quantify the quandary.

I have learned from Dr. Tyson that the universe is mostly space, emptiness, with a lot of light, some sound, and a relatively small amount of matter. I have been taught that by the very laws of physics, everything that I see has already happened by the time my brain receives and interprets the reflected light of objects laying in the path of my complex eye. I have learned that I am cousins with the first stars and, because of this, I have always been destined to be a poet and share my stardust.

I believe in many things and one of them is that we have evolved into an extreme state of complication but how magnificent it all is: the smallest atom, the molecules that agree to be identifiable as table or heart, ocean or moon. I think the heart of a poet is deeply imbedded in the daily expressions of this scientist I admire.

Now, to find a way to sit with him and listen, respond, marvel, and wonder. A girl can dream, right?