The Ancient Dream, Astronomy And The Cemetery Silence of Heaven

By Stanley Seshie

On a clear dark night, the sky is dotted with "small" twinkling

objects. The brilliance of these heavenly bodies up there amazes

humanity from time immemorial. They have inspired and lifted our

collective spirit and engendered a profusion of magnificent artistic

works, songs and poetries. (You remember the poetical song "twinkle,

twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are....."). Our forebears

look up to the Heavens for their believed inhabitant Gods to come and

take them there. They also dreamt of going there on their own. You

remember the story of how the ancient child engaged himself in

building a very tall tower, almost reaching the Heavens, and nearly

succeeded if not for that jealous deity. Yeah, the Tower of Babel

story and how the jealous deity in particular got threatened by this

resolve of mankind and supposedly confused them till they gave up.

Well, it is a fairytale. But the dream to get to Heaven on our own is

still alive today and has even materialized. Yes, it had materialized

since 1961 when Yuri Gagarin made the first trip.

At the other side of the coin, these heavenly bodies have equally

implanted superstition in all cultures of the ancient child. These

heavenly bodies have become abodes of the Gods and Gods determining

what happens in the life of man. Well, astrology is the belief in and

the search for hidden influences of positions of these heavenly bodies

on human lives. You remember the famous story of a star in the Heavens

that went ahead of the three wise men from the east and stopped far up

there, pointing down to a house somewhere in Bethlehem, indicative of

where Jesus Christ was born. Yeah, that is astrology. Another

fairytale for that matter. They abound in all cultures, holy books and

even in our modern generation despite the growing knowledge of

astronomy.

The fact is ever since Man stood up in those forest plains of Africa

(not a garden with a superior intelligent talking snake leading him

astray) he never seized looking up. In his ancient model, the Universe

is a three storey-structure with the Earth sandwiched between Heaven

above and Hell below. After imagining himself in the image of the

Gods, somehow, he declared himself incapable of ever making it to the

Heavens. When the Tower of Babel staircase project failed, he

crucified his mind and immersed himself in some abracadabra beliefs;

death becoming the spiritually refined staircase leading to Heaven.

Never forget the rapture. Yeah, how adherents of particular faith

shall cling pyramidally onto their deity in the clouds, who shall take

them out of the Earth to Heaven. In other words, the ancient child is

cocksure, that, outside and above the Earth is the home of the Gods.

Well, thanks to astronomy, the modern child now knows better. The

Universe is not a three-storey structure of Heaven, Earth and Hell. It

is a collection of star systems. We call ours the solar system. The

Heaven which was above the Earth per the ancient model and forever

forbidden to him except via death, understandably due to religious yet

superstitious beliefs stifling any conceivable effort, is now a common

ground full of the crafts of mankind. Not only that, when he got there

via his spacecrafts since 1961, there was no evidence of any Gods,

kingdoms with thrones let alone to talk of prepared mansions for the

adherents of the abracadabra faith except the Universe itself.

The modern child has successfully littered the vicinity of the Earth

with his cratfs, collectively called satellites, used for different

purposes back home on Earth. The grandeur of all these engineering

marvels of the human mind is the amalgamation of these purposes into

one giant laboratory orbiting the Earth, called the International

Space Station, ISS. The splendor of this giant ISS and other satellite

up there are equally visible to the naked eyes on a clear night. In

other words the twinkling heavenly bodies dotting the night sky up

there that have dazzled our forefathers, now have among them, some of

our own handiworks. Therefore, like the ancient child, the modern

child will equally never stop looking up.

However when he does look up, he is no longer looking up to the

Heavens for the day of rapture. He is no longer looking up to the

Heavens for the Gods to come and take him there after death. Rather,

he is looking up to see his own crafts that he put there for his own

admirations. The ancient dream of visiting Heaven, outside the Earth

had been achieved. Hmmmmm, contrary to the expectations that gave

birth to this dream, Heaven is as silent as the familiar cemetery here

on Earth. Heaven is as silent as a cemetery. Until further and better

concrete evidence are provided than that from the ancient world, the

days of delusion and illusion are over.

The challenge for many is trying to recompose the poetical song

"twinkle, twinkle LITTLE STAR, how I wonder what you are...." to

"twinkle, twinkle BIGGER STAR, now I know you are a ball of gases. As

we now know, that a star is a ball of gases even bigger than our

Earth. Never mind the congnitive dissonance prone nature of scientific

findings. Music is a different thing altogether. It is about the

melody. So we shall forever sing "twinkle, twinkle little star, how I

wonder what you are...". Maybe, so is belief. In the same vein, most

shall forever have faith in the ancient belief that, Heaven is still

the home of the Gods (or home to only the God of your religion). Even

though, on the International Space Station outside the Earth, are Men

(six in number as of september, 2015) working in the deafening

cemetery silence of the Heavens.

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