Museums and Exploding Stars

 

Museums and Exploding Stars

A few weeks ago, I went to a museum. It was more just to pass the time than out of any deep sense of conviction. There was a sticky note reminder in the back of my mind that I must try and expose my kids to lots of cultural and historical diversity to make sure they become tolerant and meaningful humans, and convenience had presented the opportunity to do so on this hot January day, in the form of a museum. 

As I passed through the roof to floor, gleaning glass doors and starting gazing through the artefacts, I was assaulted by the artillery fire of questions from my small humans about what everything was and why it mattered and how it worked.

I made a resolve to make more time for things like this. So often we get so caught up in being productive and useful, that we forget how much there is to learn and be fascinated by. It’s nice to have things to learn, for no useful or productive reason, other than just the buzzing exhilaration of discovery and wonder. 

This particular museum, like so many, was filled with stories of ill-fated adventures, treacherous ends, pieces of ancient treasure, hulls of sunken sail ships and ordinary things like cutlery and pots that at their origins were unnoteworthy household items, yet over time have found themselves reimagined as priceless relics of a now inaccessible world. 

You’d think all this unfamiliarity, tales of woe and eerily majestic artefacts would create a sense of discomfort and concern. Indeed, as a child, and even a young adult, I found the sufferings of the past quite unsettling. Museums used to make me feel a bit creeped out. I found the old-world terrifying, compared to the safety of the new one. 

But over the last decade, something had changed for me when it came to museums. I no longer felt the tremor of fear but rather a sense of unexpected contentment in the presence of relics. I was no longer bothered by the tales of the past or the treachery of those who’d gone before us, no matter how unfamiliar it may have seemed. There’d been a shift in the cogs and mechanisms of my mind and in the spirit of discovery, I thought it worthwhile to work out why I now felt so at ease in museums. 

After some thinking, I believe I’ve worked it out. I think, to start with. It’s because museums make me feel very small. 

These days, museums remind me, that in the scheme of it all, my life……… is so, very, very, small. In all that is known of time, and all that isn’t, in all the eras that have passed, in all the ebbs and flows of joy and pain presented through museum exhibits, I am an infinitesimal spec and (bear with me here) this makes me feel relieved.

I used to want to be significant, used to long to leave a mark or a change but now I find the concept of being small, quite a comfort indeed. 

You see, when each of us are so small in the scheme of things, there are no wrongs or burdens or difficulties that are ever too big or permanent. There is no great expectation for us to carry all the weight of existence or prove ourselves or stand the test of time. We can enjoy the little things, take comfort in the mundane and choose to spend our little sliver of time and space in a positive way, being whoever it is we want to be. 

My smallness makes me feel like it’ll all be ok.

I feel like the great heartbeat of life will keep cycling in spite of me. It’s not depending on me. It was here before me and it will go on after me. The surge of existence will be enough to keep going, even when I’m not. 

Don’t get me wrong, it is important to make positive change and do the right thing in life. Our actions do affect the wellbeing of our earth and each other. But when I’m in a museum, I find reprieve from the pressures of change and growth. I feel comfort in, even if just for a moment, feeling quite small.  

But small doesn’t mean not important. 

Museums may make me feel small but they also make me feel very important. 

You see, in a way, I’m a part of all the history that lays behind us, just as I am a part of all that still waits to unfold. 

My Year 8 science teacher once told me that I was drinking dinosaur pee. Initially, I laughed at him, but as he proceeded to describe the water cycles and identified how water actually never ends (it just goes through a constant cycle of changing form) I started to understand his point. This seemingly ludicrous statement was true. There are no new or different water molecules today than there were for the dinosaurs. Through all the ages, the same old water is just moving at different paces through ice, liquid, steam, cloud, rain. 

These same old molecules cycle through me (heck I’m 70% water) just as they’ve cycled through the ancient lizards of the Mesozoic. You see the physical matter that makes up our bodies, our beating hearts and thinking minds, is the same matter that made the bodies of not just dinosaurs, but of all of those who have lived before us. 

We are all made of the same matter. The water, the plants, the building, the animals, the humans – all the same atoms and chemicals, changing, reacting, bonding, separating, forming, breaking down in the life cycle around us. Who knew science could be so spiritual?

And what of our souls? Our spirits? Do they not follow the same course as our bodies? Are they participating in this cyclic inter-connection? 

Greek philosopher, Pericles, once wrote, ‘the whole earth is a tomb of heroic humans and their story is not given only in stone over where they lay but abides everywhere, without the need of symbol, interwoven into the stuff of others’ lives.’ The great bard William Shakespeare felt that, ‘all the world is a womb and all the world is a tomb.’ To these great minds, the soul of our humanity and the stories of our lives, cycle around in the same pattern as the atoms that make us. For once, science and the arts seem to see things with the same eyes. 

You see, when I think of all the stories of the past, I feel a part of them. They’ve shaped me and the world I live in and I shall play my part in doing the same for the future. My part is very small but when you look at it this way, it is very important.  

When my children are afraid of dying and the thought of it makes them feel lonely, I like to hold them close and whisper in their ears, ‘you are far too precious, to ever just end.’ And in faith, in religion, in science, I don’t think they, or any of us, ever really do. Nothing is ever truly gone. It never ends, just changes. 

This comforts them and it comforts me. 

Museums are lovely places to remember that we are connected to everything in an everlasting way and this makes us important. 

As I left the museum, feeling contented and reminded of my small importance, my little boy brought to me an unexpected question. 

Feeling similarly pensive about the meaning of it all, he said to me, ‘Mummy, my teacher told me that one day the sun will explode and all the humans will be gone forever. Then none of the history will matter anymore and everything will be gone.’

His question made me feel that even if my ponderings from our day at the museum where completely silly or incorrect, they were about to serve a very important purpose. 

Comfort to a little heart. 

I said to him, “Did you know that we are made of stars and stars are made of us? 

You see, we are pretty sure life begun when a star of some sort exploded. Maybe it was a miracle of chance or maybe it was Gods divine work? However it happened, it hurled into the cosmos, all the matter within it, and somehow, after eons and eons, life grew and changed to make this world, and to make this small but very important thing – you.

Just like it did at the start of the universe, the star that is the sun may explode again and who knows what marvellous and incredible journey that may begin. 

And if it does…..I'm sure of one thing. You will be a small but very important part of it.

So often, it seems the distance between fear and hope - is just a perspective. 

May you enjoy your small importance.

The Reformist Princess