Stars are born from giant clouds of gas and dust lying in the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy. Such a cloud is called a nebula. Viewing the Milky Way galaxy on its rim from outside, it looks like a fairly flat disk with a thick cloud of stars about its centre. Seen at right angles, it looks like a huge Catherine wheel in which two main arms spiral out from the centre. The Sun lies in one of these arms. The myriad of stars forming the centre of the galaxy are hidden from earth by vast formations of cosmic dust and are not directly visible.

One nebula that is visible to the naked eye is in the Orion star constellation. It appears just below the belt of Orion as a hazy patch. Photographs taken of the cloud with specialist equipment show a kaleidoscope of colors from gasses illuminated by stars that have already formed within the cloud. Behind the visible cloud, astronomers have detected an even larger dark cloud in which stars are still being born. These vast fields of gas come together under a gravitational force and compact into small dense globes, or embryo stars.

As gravity tightens them further, the embryo stars begin to glow. Friction heats them at first, as particles of gas and dust rub together. To become a star like the Sun, it takes about ten million years as the temperature and pressure at the heart of the young star become sufficiently extreme to activate nuclear reactions that power the star for the remainder of its life. There are many other glowing gas clouds in space similar to the Orion nebula, proving that the birth of stars is a continuing process. As stars grow old and die, new ones are being born elsewhere.

Now compare this process to procreation in humanity, as humans grow old and die, new ones are being born elsewhere. Are we mirroring star formation? Could this solar system be a nebula, and is the earth the mother that gives birth to new stars? This brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘Mother Earth’.

There are two strands of thought when seeking answers to the origins of the universe, one is spiritual and the other is scientific. Spiritual thought comes through intuition and reflection. Scientific thought comes from reason and logic. This is universal power meeting universal intelligence on the physical plane.

The latter comes from looking outside, and the former comes from looking within. Inner vision is activated by universal power, and outer vision is activated by universal intelligence.

Harmonizing both strands of thought leads to a Singularity and the Intelligence that gave birth to the universe. As spiritual and mental energy harmonize, so too does masculine and feminine energy. Humans are here to experience first-hand what it feels like to be a child of the universe.

~ Collette O’Mahony