Postcard from Raymond: How interconnected do you feel?

This image is a simulation of the “cosmic web,” a network of the scaffolding holding together the structure of the universe. This structure constitutes galaxies, dark matter, the gas that coalesces into stars, and “filaments”: regions of galaxy clusters woven together through what resembles slender, cobweb-like threads. This image from UC Riverside highlights how these filaments’ galactic properties formed the backbone of the cosmic web and the stars we see throughout our reality.

If we think about it, isn’t it extraordinary that, we human beings that are literal constituents of the universe—we are made from it—able to map it, to chart it, to study it to even the limited extent we have? At the same time we congratulate ourselves as the beings that the universe has chosen to help it understand itself, we should remain humble in the face of the unfathomable interconnectedness that we share with not just all beings but with all matter seen and unseen in the cosmos, reaching back into the untraceable deep past and onward into the infinite future.

It is true that the endless darkness can be frightening. But doesn’t this “web” almost remind one of a cosmic incarnation of Charlotte the spider, weaving a beautiful gossamer lace of stars while nurturing and advising the lonely pig Wilbur?

And we haven’t even gotten into the profundity of what lies beyond—the life after our life in this inconceivable organism of the universe… and the insight that was briefly unveiled by a sage on this little blue and green planet.