There was no morning, no east where a sun might rise and no west into which it could vanish.
There were no oceans reflecting moonlight, no mountains holding snow, and no breeze wrapping around leaves.
Moreover, there was not a single eye and nothing for one to witness.
And then, 13.8 billion years ago, something happened.
Everything began with space itself expanding. An unimaginably white-hot universe cooled as it grew.
Particles appeared.
Eventually, atoms, quarks, and molecules.
Mostly hydrogen.
Some helium.
You know, simple things.
In its infancy, the universe possessed none of the ingredients necessary for a sun, a moon, an ocean, mountains, an eye nor anything to observe.
In its mysterious glory, gravity went to work.
Across immense stretches of time and space indivisible, stunningly large clouds of hydrogen pulled together and gathered. Collapsing beneath their own weight, pressure and unimaginable temperature rose enough to ignite something truly extraordinary.
The first stars turned on.
Imagine the cloak of darkness, then imagine the first light.
Inside those sources of new light, something remarkable was happening. The stars became enormous furnaces capable of forging lighter elements into heavier elements.
Hydrogen became helium.
Carbon.
Oxygen.
Silicon.
Iron.
Ingredients.
But like November Rain, stars do not live or last forever.
Some exhausted their fuel, collapsed catastrophically, and scattered what they had cooked, forged, and made out into the universe.
Later generations upon generations of stars (and violent cosmic events) continued the work, repeating time after time. Over time and space, more elements were cooked, enriched, and scattered further into the void. These elements are where worlds (and eventually beings) could be assembled.
The universe collected and gathered the remains and tried again, again and again.
New stars formed from old material. Around some, disks composed of dust and gas spun. They collided. They accumulated. Tiny grains would become rocks. Rocks would become worlds.
About 4.6 billion years ago, this happened again near one rather small, rather ordinary star in one small galaxy—one galaxy among an incomprehensible number of galaxies that had formed before and many more later.
A planet formed with a violent genesis.
Molten rock. Collisions. Volcanoes. Chaos. An atmosphere, nothing like ours.
Eventually, water gathered and later, oceans appeared.
And somewhere within the chemistry of this small, unassuming world, matter performed another astonishing trick.
It began living.
Life persisted, changed, divided, competed, cooperated, adapted and survived.
Generation of simple life followed generation followed generation across billions of years.
Continents assembled, rose, pulled and broke apart.
Species appeared and later vanished.
Asteroids struck. Ice advanced and retreated. Forests rose from landscapes where forests had never existed. The chaos was still palpable. Regardless, life continued.
Eventually, some living beings developed simple nervous systems capable of sensing the world around them in their environment.
Much later came beings capable of wondering about it, about themselves, and how everything came to be.
Life continued.
Living beings adapted, changed and continued.
And eventually, there was you.
Is there anything more miraculous, wondrous and beautiful?
Consider what had to happen before you could stand where you are standing now.
The calcium in your bones had been forged from ancient cosmic processes.
The iron carrying oxygen through your blood had been created before Earth existed in the cores of stars.
The carbon defining the architecture of your very cells had to be manufactured by cosmic heat, explosions, and the rebirth of luminous blast-furnaces.
Over and over.
Breathe in.
The oxygen entering your lungs connects you to generations of stars, planets, oceans, plants and other living things stretching backward through this history.
The story is almost impossible to comprehend in its chaos, creation, destruction, creation and beauty.
I’m not implying that the universe was trying to make you or me, and perhaps that makes it stranger.
More curious.
More fun.
More mind-bending because after billions of years of expansion (as well as gravity, fire, collision, collapse, explosion, chemistry, extinction, survival, and chance), some of the universe’s enriched matter has arranged itself into something.
Someone.
Someone capable of asking what any of it means.
Someone who can hear music.
Someone who can remember someone who is gone.
Someone who can laugh until their ribs hurt.
Someone who can love another someone.
Someone who can look upward on a clear borderland night, see ancient light arriving from stars unimaginably distant, and understand what they are seeing.
So, if someday you find yourself searching for wonder, wishing you truly see a miracle, searching for something beautiful, thinking that miracles are relegated only to ancient stories or myth, or dreaming of distant galaxies or places you may never visit, there is something special you can do.
Find a mirror.
Stand before it.
Look carefully.
There, looking back at you, is hydrogen transformed by gravity, elements forged by stars and scattered by violent and blinding explosions, matter assembled by a planet, chemistry awakened into life, and billions of years of life becoming increasingly capable of knowing that it exists.
A piece of the universe has learned to look at itself.
And somehow, impossibly, wonderfully, beautifully—it recognizes the reflection.
So, if you ever want to witness a miracle, remember: a mirror will do just as well as a telescope. After all, they are both looking at the universe.
Robert Horton is an educator, author, orator and linguist. He is a member of Rainy River First Nations.
