Magic Every Moment ~ ARP 273

Greetings Dear Reader,

If you do not already know what ARP 273 is you will.  When I first saw the image of it I was immediately transported to a night during my ninth summer.  I was in a place with no light pollution and clear skies.  It was overnight camping in a vast field.

ARP 273 - Hubble Space Telescope

The sky erupted with so many blazing stars.  Several shooting stars spent their brief brilliant lives to draw out my wonder.  It was the first time I felt the vastness of the universe.  I felt so small and so vast all at once.  When I read Thomas Traherne many years later I found his view of stars to echo my own. 

Century 1:34 Would one think it possible for a man to delight in gauderies like a butterfly, and neglect the Heavens? Did we not daily see it, it would be incredible. They rejoice in a piece of gold more than in the Sun; and get a few little glittering stones and call them jewels. And admire them because they be resplendent like the stars, and transparent like the air, and pellucid like the sea. But the stars themselves which are ten thousand times more useful, great, and glorious they disregard. Nor shall the air itself be counted anything, though it be worth all the pearls and diamonds in ten thousand worlds. A work of God so Divine by reason of its precious and pure transparency, that all worlds would be worth nothing without such a treasure.

ARP 273 is a pair of interacting galaxies in the Andromeda constellation.  The forces of the intertwining galaxies imitate tidal like movement on a literally cosmic scale.  This vast beauty, brought clearly to our attention by the Hubble Telescope captures the great magic and majesty of the cosmos. 

We see the stars in moments.  Sometimes we venture out to see them and sometimes we are surprised when they impose their beauty upon us.  When I make the time to notice I am reminded of the magic in those moments.  I am reminded that the heavens declare the glory of God loudly and clearly.  They declare it magically every moment.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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