Little Cosmos
the metaphysical magic of attention
The cosmos pose a problem.
You see, in philosophy there’s an idea that the things around me help me understand my place in the world. The connection between my legs and chair, the space between my hand and cup, and the distance my gaze travels to the garden all help situate me. I am here because they are there. My spatial identity is dynamic, of course, because every step is a new “here” with new things “there.”
When thinking of space in this way, it’s clear how I’m shaped through relationship with the world. But, the cosmos mess this all up. They’re too big! They could be infinite, for goodness sake. The space between myself and the tree is comprehensible. The space between me and the cosmos is not. When I open to the blueness above, and I mean really open, I feel my skin practically disintegrating. There is no something reflecting back to me. Nothing to meet me. Only vastness with no end. And if there is no end, how can I know where I begin?
I shudder and turn to contemplate things on a smaller scale. Things like my dog darting on and off the path. The bees buzzing in my husband’s herb garden. The sunlight on my daughter’s eyelashes. These details pull me in a particular direction, offering boundaries for my attention.
My fingers lightly touch my daughter’s cheek as I follow the outline of her face with my eyes. My goodness, her lips! Could there be a more perfect pair? I have no doubt she was recently in the heavens, her little cosmic being playing freely in the clouds. When she cried for hours as a newborn, I worried she might want to go back there. But her tears came less and less as she realized the world is not a big emptiness, but a big fullness. At every turn there is something worthy of investigation. Stones, sticks, the dog’s water bowl, and electrical outlets!
When I was a toddler myself, my mother took me on a picnic. She had planned to set up in a spacious area with surrounding flowers, but we only got halfway before I plopped myself down on the side of the path. My mother shrugged her shoulders and sat down, too. Together we ate while examining the grasses and rocks any picnic-minded adult would have passed without noticing. It took a toddler with no preconceived ideas about eating locations to bring these wonders from the background of my mother’s perception and into the fore.
This reminds me of a mistake my friend made when organizing an international entomology conference (insect studies). He’d planned for the attendees to walk through a park to get from one event to another. But as soon as they stepped into the green space the insect experts scattered, pointing high and low while excitedly discussing the tiny species all around. My friend tried to herd them, but it was no use. What he thought was a beautiful big park was also a vibrant bug sanctuary, each meter worthy of focused gaze. Everything got horribly delayed.
Focused attention, practiced by toddlers and entomologists alike, involves a wonderful metaphysical trick. By narrowing in on a small space, new worlds unfold. When walking through the forest, I might stop at any point and spend the day in wonder. The longer I stay and still myself, the more is revealed. The forest becomes particular trees with many leaves, which become particular leaves with particular branches and bark. Each bit of bark has its own form and weaving lines, which house particular bugs with particular legs. Little cosmos infinitely stretch in every square centimeter.
The depth of worlds upon worlds upon worlds threatens to overwhelm me. And yet, it doesn’t. I’m roped in like a curious child, delighted by all the things I don’t know. Surrendering simply leads to “wow”, which Anne Lamott tells me is an acceptable one-word prayer.
Eureka! If these little cosmos make me wonder, why should the big ones make me shudder? Isn’t this something my daughter had quickly learned in her first months of life— that the world isn’t empty but full? When looking up I had been seeking an end that would stop my gaze and tell me where I stand. I’d assumed that in between this point and I was nothingness. But this shows only the limitations of my thinking. The cosmos is a vibrant living being! In opening to it I’m not exposed to void space, but am enveloped in worlds on worlds on worlds. That is where I stand and who I am. A being always entangled. Held snug in the midst of everything.
Practice: Stop anywhere at all at anytime and notice all that surrounds you. You might put some time aside to do this, say 15 minutes, inside or out. But you can also do this while waiting for something, like a coffee or to cross the road. I’ve often marveled at the intricacies of a crosswalk!
Waiting can be a rich gift of time to connect with the world, but it’s lost when scrolling on a phone or listening to music or a podcast. I invite you to leave the phone in your pocket or (even better) at home, and open up to the world that’s holding you.
Inspiration: I love Alexandra Horowitz’s book On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation. Horowitz walks the same Manhattan block with different people— her toddler, a geologist, an artist, a sound designer— describing how the block morphs anew according to each person’s experience and interests.
The Center for Humans and Nature’s series on the Cosmos, especially this essay by Jim Embry, which is full of wonderful references and beautiful in its own right.
I haven’t read it yet, but Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s book The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred is supposed to be excellent. It’s a black feminist critique on and vision for science and physics.
And lastly, the wonderful Anne Lamott, whose books make me laugh and move into posture of wonder. This week I was inspired by her book, Help, Thanks, Wow: Three Essential Prayers, but you should also take 15 minutes for her TED Talk “12 truths I learned from life and writing”.
Loved this one ❤️ so important to leave the phone at home and look at the beautiful full world around you! Love how children can help us remember how cool life is ☺️
'The world is not a big emptiness but a big fullness.' Love this thought. Thank you for this gentle reflection.
And Annie Lamott is right, as always, that 'WOW' is a prayer. Astonishment, and its cozy cousin wonder, form the seed bed for all mystical knowings, and by that I mean the deep wisdoms that are revealed by attentive experience. Simone Weil wrote that "Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer." And I would add conversely that prayer in its simplest form is paying attention without agenda or desire, only the simple knowledge that there is more to be revealed. Paying attention is an act of great generosity, for it holds the faith that the other has much to offer, and that it will be both lovingly given, and lovingly received. While reading your post, Madelaine, I also saw how paying attention is a vulnerable act, placing both viewer and viewed in a tender repose.
Oh, and the delightful Maria Popova has a short piece on attention worth a read. https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/08/19/simone-weil-attention-gravity-and-grace/
Also, I note that you speak of the cosmos in the category of 'they.' Thank you for that. I am an older reader, and the shifting of gender to a wider lens can often be confusing for those formed in the he/she paradigm. Often on first read, I hear incorrect grammar! So, it takes a slowing down, a paying attention, to see the larger word lens. Thank you for that too.