here's an image of the calabash nebula. it lies about 5,000 light-years away.
the calabash nebula is made up of gas ejected by the central star and accelerated in opposite directions, at speeds of up to one and a half million km/h! like so much of what happens in space, i am in awe of it but i can't wrap my head around the scale of it all. much of the gas flow seen today seems to stem from a sudden acceleration that took place about 800 years ago. over the next 1,000 years or so, the calabash is expected to evolve into a fully fledged planetary nebula. i don't expect to be around to see it. i hope it's lovely. it sure is now.
what's a calabash? it's a gourd that can be carved into a bowl, or a pipe, or even used as a percussion instrument.
here's one:
and to go with these beautiful images, some love poems by the greatest sufi poet rumi. the metaphor of love in these poems carries through its human incarnation to that of our relationship with the divine. and then back again.
the beauty of the heart
is the lasting beauty:
its lips give to drink
of the water of life.
truly it is the water,
that which pours,
and the one who drinks.
all three become one when
your talisman is shattered.
that oneness you can't know
by reasoning.
Mathnawi II, 716-718
in the arc of your mallet
don't go anywhere without me.
let nothing happen in the sky apart from me,
or on the ground, in this world or that world,
without my being in its happening.
vision, see nothing I don't see.
language, say nothing.
the way the night knows itself with the moon,
be that with me. be the rose
nearest to the thorn that I am.
I want to feel myself in you when you taste food,
in the arc of your mallet when you work,
when you visit friends, when you go
up on the roof by yourself at night.
there's nothing worse than to walk out along the street
without you. I don't know where I'm going.
you're the road, and the knower of roads,
more than maps, more than love.
The Essential Rumi (Coleman Barks)
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