Mark Green's Atheopaganism Blog

Living an Earth-Honoring Path Rooted in Science

Shush Now

In the beginning was the word, and the word was BOOM.

BOOM exploding out from nothing, from the tiniest point

And even in those early moments the wild particles colliding,

Combining to form elements, molecules, scattering wide in the blank empty script

Of possibility. On they went, making compounds, slowly pulling towards one another in disks of

Spinning gravity, tightening, tightening until

BOOM again: a star turning rotating part of a thousand a million a billion a galaxy BOOM

The molecules pouring out, heavy and pregnant until

Grinding to lava glow the rough spheres, the gravid disks collapse to make worlds BOOM

The comets pounding down with water, with carbon

And all this time, beloved

We knew nothing. Nothing.

Thirteen point seven billion years of nothing.

And then at last there came a time when

The fateful worm of Life demanding it, though improbable, you were made.

You were born.

And slowly—so slowly—the awareness of being a Self, being One Apart came

Into you, and me, and all of us. We are ourselves, in this eyeblink of time, laughing

And crying and striving. After thirteen point seven billion years of nothing.

There will come a day.

Soon, sad to say. Sooner than most of us want

Will come the moments when, after parties and funerals, and so much festivity

We will go to nothing again.

We will return to the state we knew before the little knot of flesh began to beat

To become us.

We will disappear to the state we knew during those thirteen point seven

Billion years.

Death is just that.

That’s all.

Don’t be afraid.

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