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… when we saw tiny Earth, people asked our crew what impressions we had, and honestly what struck me wasn’t necessarily just Earth. It was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the Universe. Soooooo … (overcome with emotion)
Astronaut Christina Koch
Artemis II – Orion (link)
accompanied by astronauts Commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen
The sound of some who believe themselves ‘big noise’ voices in our time grate and enervate.
Christina Koch, though, together with her travel companions, restores our energy; she and they present us with an holistic perspective, held, honed and nurtured not only by technical skills, supreme emotional intelligence, intellectual and physical capacity, but by readily articulated humility and love. Christina’s is a voice that resounds around the Universe – in ‘all the blackness around it.’
Christina Koch presents us with a unifying vision of a communion, of Earth as a lifeboat, and of humankind as her crew – a people and a planet with the same potential for connection and purpose as that shared encircling the Moon by the Artemis II crew, aboard Orion.
Tears of joy, and of something else, as yet nameless, and much, much deeper, stream down my face as I listen to these charming, gentle, companionable heroes. I want to hear more of them. I want their brave, and soft, and strong, and wise words to drown out present-day harsh, lewd, cruel and ignorant voices. The crew of Artemis II restore hope in me. Blessed, indeed, are peacemakers.
O, hush the noise ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing …
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Please also see Far from the city
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Where’s my ‘love’ button…xx
What a mission, Mimi! What truly remarkable, wonderful, intelligent, thoughtful people. And – from the perspective of space – what delicious, hopeful, visionary food for thought we’ve been given 🤗 xx
Hopeful – a feeling I haven’t been in touch with for awhile. They brought more than magnificent photos – as awesome as they are. They offered wonder and hope and delight…xx
Yes! – I’ve been musing today on the theme of the number of novels I’ve read that gather around ‘just when we thought we were running out of hope …’
Humankind and – literally – The Universe keep coming up with surprises, higher visions, altered perspectives and experience.
Among the thoughts I’ve been most moved by this week has been the astronauts’ looking upon Earth from a distance and seeing it and every living thing upon it as ‘one.’
Four astronauts in a spaceship wherein
it’s imperative that they work as one. Eight billion human lives on planet Earth wherein it’s ever more imperative that they work as one. May walls come tumbling down! 🙏☀️🌱 xxx
Wonderful words, true and resounding.