I remember visiting the Planetarium when my school class was studying Astronomy. Seeing the Perseid Meteors stream across the skies in mid-August. At times, one bright star every three minutes. And learning about sunbursts and quantum physics and theories of matter. Prince Hamlet in the early 1600s said the universe was made of ‘fretted fire’ and he was not wrong.
The ancient philosophers had a theory about the structure of the universe - this one, at least. They believed that the world around us was formed in concentric circles. The world we human beings live in, here on Earth, the sublunary world, is subject to volatility, decay and weather. This is the world of physical and emotional attachment, which we navigate with our five senses.
But when we leave its specific context, and its gravitational pull, and rise up into the stratosphere, we shed its parameters of familiarity and its restrictions, we are free of weight and time, and even of ageing and the other pressures which keep us in our place.
I have just finished re-watching the wonderful science fiction film ‘Interstellar’, in case you are wondering. And the idea of 7 years on Earth passing for every equivalent hour in space is both terrifying and incredible in concept. I think too of Bean in Orson Scott Card’s ‘Ender’s Shadow’, and the difficult choices he makes, for himself and his children. The time shifts that occur and the opportunities they create, and also foreclose.
Relativism in practice means that everything happens at the same time, but at different speeds. Like the different time zones which means it is last night in Los Angeles or New Mexico when it is the morning of the next day in Colombo. Each of us lives in a completely different context and specific reality. Just relating to each other requires a mental tuning in, and shift in perspective. One move in any direction and the world looks different.
We feel this, in a more practical way, at the beginning of the flight of a plane on which we are a passenger - as it rises above the clouds, and we see that all the weather we had experienced in the city from which we departed was different from the level above. It is an immediate shift in perspective, and it changes our experience.
All the meditation retreats and energy cleansing pathways in the world seek to help us make this shift. If we can rise above the troubles of our body, the anxieties of our mind, the frustrations and delays and perceived threats and disappointments and regrets - would we be able to transcend these mortal limitations, and feel the sunlight of the present day, unblocked and unfiltered by sorrow? Would we see better, in the clear light of day?
The colour and texture of our perceptions make meaning for us, out of the experiences which we traverse. This haze of subjectivity makes it hard to perceive anything other than our own needs and wishes. Yet the people around us, with their criticisms and protests, will let us know when we need to be brought back down to earth. 
Some of the greatest popular songs of the ‘70s, like ‘Rocket Man’, ‘Star Man’ and ‘Fly Into The Sun’, showed the loneliness of the imaginative positioning of the human experience, of being out in space. Human beings were exploring the possibilities that there was intelligent life in the universe. But all was not as it may appear through a telescope: Mars was not the place to raise your kids. ‘In fact, it’s cold as hell’, as Elton John’s song put it. ‘I think it’s going to be a long, long time,’ is a truly haunting phrase. Imagine 70 years of human life reduced to 10 hours in space: ‘All this science, I don’t understand. It’s just my job, 5 days a week’.
‘Interstellar’ shows the loneliness of living on the edge of the known limits of human life, the desperation of the destroyed and eroded Earth, crops dying, and human beings choking, their lungs riddled with dust and their hearts with despair. Driven by a desire to find a better world, even if we have to freeze ourselves while we are waiting. The despair of not being able to communicate with the people back home. The time lags. The missed milestone experiences, of love and children. The anguished fear of a child being abandoned. The theme of detachment, both emotional and mechanical, and the danger of clumsy, imperfect connection.
With the same fierce shared desire for survival, and an enhanced awareness of our higher capabilities, perhaps we can evolve. Perhaps, we can develop and discover more intelligent life, here on Earth.
Imagine, all the people, living for today.
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