I

April 29th

WASHING AWAY THE DUST OF LIFE

“Watch the stars in their courses and imagine yourself running

alongside them. Think constantly on the changes of the elements

into each other, for such thoughts wash away the dust of earthly

life.”

—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.47

t is almost impossible to stare up at the stars and not feel something. As
cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson has explained, the cosmos fills us with
complicated emotions. On the one hand, we feel an infinitesimal smallness
in comparison to the vast universe; on the other, an extreme connectedness
to this larger whole.
Obviously, given that we’re in our bodies every day, it’s tempting to
think that’s the most important thing in the world. But we counteract that
bias by looking at nature—at things much bigger than us. A line from
Seneca, which has since become a proverb, expresses Marcus’s insight
well: Mundus ipse est ingens deorum omnium templum (The world itself is
a huge temple of all the gods).
Looking at the beautiful expanse of the sky is an antidote to the nagging
pettiness of earthly concerns. And it is good and sobering to lose yourself in
that as often as you can.