Jan. 29, 2024

“We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff.” — Carl Sagan

The epic science mini-series, Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, is mental comfort food for me. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it and found solace in Sagan’s perspective and words.

So in 2002, when the lead single from Moby’s album 18 took a cue from one of Sagan’s most famous quotes, I was thrilled. And I was even more thrilled when my first child — just a little more than three years old at the time — took a powerful liking to the song.

He was a brand new big brother at the time, and the world was opening up to him in all sorts of new ways. He’d sing We Are All Made of Stars to his baby sister as they rode in the back seat of the car together, and sometimes he and I would belt it out together.

To this day, I can’t hear the song without smiling and hearing his little voice. Between that, Sagan, and what I know to be true about how we are all connected, I always feel at least a bit happier when the track plays.

We can be drawn closer together, pushed further apart, but there are unbreakable bonds that we all share. None of us are ever truly isolated in our sorrow or joy,

Star stuff is in each of us, and we live together beneath the same star-filled sky, a sky that embraces the lovers, the haters, and the indifferent.

We might as well try to shine. Especially in the darkness. That’s what stars do best.

Slowly rebuilding

I feel it in me

Growing in numbers

Growing in peace