The first time I ever heard that phrase “We are made of star stuff”, it just blew my mind. The fact that we, our bodies, are made up of the very same elements that make up stars still gives me shivers.

A couple of years ago, I accompanied my family to visit Washington, D.C. to attend my nephew’s graduation from the Air Force Presidential Honor Guard training. While there, we were able to visit parts of the Smithsonian Institute. I wandered, by myself, throughout the Natural Sciences museum. There, in a small corner of the museum, I found a most wonderful thing–a vial, dark blue and mysterious, set under a glass cube. Inside this vial was stardust, brought back from a NASA mission. I looked at this vial, into the dust collected from a star billions of years old and tears streamed down my face. What was in this vial was also what made up me…what makes up all of us. For it to have traveled so far, from so long ago, still gives me shivers.

I believe in Creation, in the idea that we and the universe around began with an intelligent force, a Creator which most folks refer to as God. How that creation came to be, though, is a great mystery. I believe that it all could have started with a word, with a bang, with a tremendous moment in time witnessed only be the Creator. None of us were there and anything we think or believe, including scientific or religious truths about how it all started cannot be totally proven or disproven. However, I cannot, nor would not want to, deny the fact that science has found the answers to many mysteries.   To truly be able to tell us what elements we are made of is a great accomplishment. To be able to study what is in the stardust, what makes up the universe,  is also a great accomplishment. To be able to tell us that we and the stardust, the universe itself,  is made of the same stuff is heart-soaring to me.  To have scientific evidence for my long-believed faith that the Creator made us and the physical universe of the same stuff, that we are made of the earth, of the sky, of the stars, is overwhelming.

It is in that light, that shimmering of understanding that while gazing at the stars, we are also gazing at ourselves, that I share with you this video made up of pieces and parts of Carl Sagan’s talks on The Cosmos and other scientific discussions and interviews with Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye (The Science Guy!)  Here is the Symphony of Science, We are All Connected.

[deGrasse Tyson]
We are all connected;
To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically

[Feynman]
I think nature’s imagination
Is so much greater than man’s
She’s never going to let us relax

[Sagan]
We live in an in-between universe
Where things change all right
But according to patterns, rules,
Or as we call them, laws of nature

[Nye]
I’m this guy standing on a planet
Really I’m just a speck
Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck
To think about all of this
To think about the vast emptiness of space
There’s billions and billions of stars
Billions and billions of specks

[Sagan]
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together
The cosmos is also within us
We’re made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself

Across the sea of space
The stars are other suns
We have traveled this way before
And there is much to be learned

I find it elevating and exhilarating
To discover that we live in a universe
Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
As intricate and subtle as we

[deGrasse Tyson]
I know that the molecules in my body are traceable
To phenomena in the cosmos
That makes me want to grab people in the street
And say, have you heard this??

(Richard Feynman on hand drums and chanting)

[Feynman]
There’s this tremendous mess
Of waves all over in space
Which is the light bouncing around the room
And going from one thing to the other

And it’s all really there
But you gotta stop and think about it
About the complexity to really get the pleasure
And it’s all really there
The inconceivable nature of nature

Source: John Boswell (musician who created this video) john@symphonyofscience.com
Learn more about the artist here.
Check out his other site, colorpulsemusic.com, )

Thank you to my online friend, Peni, for sharing this with me
in the first place.

Categories: Wild Ramblings

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