September 11, 2004

The Dandelion

The dandelion stretched itself up and changed its angle slightly

As it saw the child walk absent-mindedly in its direction

The ploy worked. The child noticed it and approached staring

It being the first flower she had ever knowingly discovered

Intuitively recognizing its beauty as the mirror image of the sun

The child picked up the flower to better smell and divine its secrets

The blossom crumpled in the small hand but undaunted and fearless

Announced in its tiny, enchanted voice, AI will show you Infinity!@

And magically, right in the palm of the child, the flower became

First a group of cells each measuring 1000^th of an inch, then

Instantly, a group of atoms, each 100,000,000^th of an inch across

And then atomic nuclei each 1,000,000,000,000^th of an inch

By that time, the child=s hand looked as though it were empty

For not only were the electrons whirling around their nuclei

At the same relative distance from them as the planets from the sun

But the electrons themselves had changed from particles to waves

Focusing now on one nucleus, the child saw that it was made up

Of quarks, 100,000,000,000,000,000,000^th the size of electrons

And then, matter disappeared altogether, only a nothing remaining

Undetectable, unmeasurable, immaterial, omnipresent, infinite

And as tears began to roll down the rosy cheeks of the child

For she thought she had lost forever her very first dandelion

The flower reversed itself, materializing itself again, matter

Springing out of the nothing and becoming dandelion again

Then, conscious indeed of its identity as the sun=s earthly image

The dandelion requested the star to display Infinity=s other side

Much honored and dimming its brightness so the child could see

The sun revealed itself to be 1,300,000 times the size of the earth

The child then saw the Milky Way, with its 100,000,000,000 stars

Forming the shape of a spiral 100,000 light-years in diameter

And Andromeda, our neighbor, 2,200,000 light-years away

With 200,000,000,000 stars in a spiral 165,000 light-years across

She saw our whole universe, a four-dimensional pseudo-sphere

Born 15,000,000,000 ago, now 26,000,000,000 light-years across

Containing 50,000,000,000 galaxies. And she saw that ours is only

One of a number of universes in a super-space of infinite dimensions

Taking his leave from the child, the sun did not forget to tell her

His most important lesson B that since space is relative and curved

Any observer, most crucially she, is at the center of the universe B

The point at her center is also the point at the center of the cosmos

It would be many, many years (in human time) until the child

Now an old woman, having lived in the terrestrial world, in what

She thought was only four dimensions (space, time, matter, energy)

Came at last to suspect that Infinity might also reside within herself

Perhaps she had already been in hell during those years of war

When other humans tried to kill her. Now she might reach for

The heavenly side of Infinity with what in her had always been

Undetectable, unmeasurable, immaterial, omnipresent, infinite

Her mind, her soul, her Spirit

Each with larger allotments of Being

Each encompassing her environment

Each accepting her trajectory

Each grounded in love

All at the center of the universe.

Definitions and References

Definitions

Light-year: The distance light travels in one (sidereal) year B 6,000,000,000,000 miles.

The planets= Distance from the Sun: The Earth is 92,960,000 miles from the sun. Mercury and Venus are 0.39 and 0.72 that distance, respectively. Pluto, the furthest planet, is 39 times that distance.

References

Columbia Encyclopedia, 6^th Edition (Columbia University/Gale Group, New York, N.Y.), 2000.

Smith, Huston, Forgotten Truth B The Common Vision of the World=s Religions (HarperSan Francisco), 1976/1992.

***