This lovely and chastening image came to me today from my friend and fellow poet Sandra Sajbel. Why it matters appears below….
It’s the twentieth anniversary of the famous “pale blue dot” photo – Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). Carl Sagan’s words are always worth remembering:
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
I wish it were so. But just last week on TV I heard the mealiest of mealy-mouthed pundits, George Will, in discussing the Gulf oil spill, say, "Accidents happen." Arrogance is alive and well, it seems….
"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one
I think you're right, Gary: we're all bemused…<br /><br />And Lute, the smallness of the Earth in the photo for me has nothing to do with (in-)significance. I think it's a wonder. The significant thing is what we do with and to the planet, with and to each other. The photo should warn us against hubris, not reduce all our thoughts and actions to absurdity.
what percentage of our brethren are capable of abandoning their hubris and embracing not only their own insignificance but that of the entire planet?
.<br /> The Sea<br /><br /><br />Hundreds and scores of nations drawn upon the world,<br />a world so huge we could never see it all;<br />so many shapes and sizes and each with flags unfurled,<br />exotic places, far away and strange,<br />mysterious lands across the sea with unfamiliar names.<br />And I suppose that my home, too, is far away<br />and strange to
Joe,<br /><br />Thanks for reminding us not to forget where we are in the scheme of things!