There are a minimum of fifty billion galaxies in the known universe and a minimum of two hundred million stars in each galaxy. That’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. Since some galaxies contain as many as a trillion stars, the total is actually much greater. In fact the known universe contains a minimum of 70 sextillion stars, 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, according to the most recent estimate. To make this mystic number intelligible to us, modern astronomers explain that there are more stars in the known universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches and deserts of the earth.
I trim the wet green stem of a white carnation.
From an isolated spot in rural Nebraska on a clear dark night fewer than 1500 stars are visible to the naked eye. These 1500 stars are a tiny fraction of the 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, a giant spiral galaxy with a diameter of 100,000 light years or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles. One of the stars in the Milky Way is our Sun.
I light a white candle.
Orbiting the Sun are the nine planets of our solar system and their moons. The third planet from the Sun is Earth. There are about 6,500,000,000 human beings alive on Earth.
One of them is me.
Each day about 320,000 human beings are born, and each day about 160,000 human beings die. One day, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps today, I will be one of the day’s 160,000 dead.
I shovel cold white snow.
Measured at its equator, the Earth spins on its axis at 1,000 miles per hour. In its elliptical orbit around the Sun, the Earth revolves at 70,000 miles per hour. The Sun and its solar system speed within the spiral arm of the Milky Way at 40,000 miles per hour. The spiral arm of the Milky Way revolves around its center at 650,000 miles per hour. The Milky Way speeds outward toward the limit of the known universe at 1,300,000 miles per hour.
I gaze at the dead, cold, white full moon.
I sleep. At 4:00 a.m. my alarm sounds, a clock radio tuned to white noise. It says, “Shhhhh!” I wake. I rise. I brush my teeth and hair. In my mirror I see me. I dress. I bow. I sit.
I breathe.
