The Sun and the Story of Us - it's All in a Strand of Hair

Take a strand of your hair, and look at it closely beneath a light. Consider what it is made of... where does hair, your hair, really come from? Or your nails, your bones.... and everything else that makes up your body?

Look at the room you're sitting in, the house you're in, the street it is on. Look at the trees or cars outside, the fence, the air between the objects outside... The air in your lungs, the light entering your eyes showing the words you're reading...

Once upon a time, a star exploded after running out of fuel, somewhere in the vicinity of space in which our solar system now resides... Then, another star formed from this debris, and then it too ran out of fuel and went supernova – it too exploded, the most fantastic and beautiful of nuclear explosions!

In the super heated soup of this sun, before it exploded, the higher mass elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and iron were created; the very same elements that exist inside your body.

The process, known as supernova nucleosynthesis, enabled the process of life and death as we know it! When this second supernova exploded, it scattered carbon far into space, and eventually helped create the third-generation solar system in which we now exist... our sun!

And the carbon in your strand of hair...

Every movement of energy in our world, whether it's the steam from a kettle, or the ability to walk across the room, is all energy derived from suns; the exploded matter from an old sun, and the energy fed to us directly from the sun above our heads.

We are made of suns, nothing more, nothing less! We are scattered stardust re-assembled in a different form... the recycling of star material and light is ongoing, on and on, far into the depths of time...

...the countless stars shining through eternal night, as plentiful as grains of sand on an endless beach.

Everything you do, everything you feel, everyting you think, is all due to the glory of the suns, and right now, the one Sun we are familiar, keeping the cold of space away...

All Hail the Sun!

We would never have happened without the sun, and the suns that came before... All of civilization, all inventions, are due to the sun.

All paintings, all science, all religions, all structures... all built with materials provided by suns, creating a context within which homo sapiens could live and think 'I am'...

And while civilisations come and go, the sun continues, as it has been for 4.5 billion years, and will again for that length of time, before it too goes Supernova and destroys the whole of the solar system that we know. It may not explode as such, being too small a star, but its expansion before it quietly dies, will fry the whole of the solar system.

Life on earth is based on carbon and oxygen, but the making of which needs a very finely tuned process. So, while one of my hubs discusses the fact that the US will soon have to admit involvement with Extra Terrestrials, this hub is pushing the balance in the other way. It's entirely possible that we truly are alone in this vast cosmos.

Life as we know it is dependent on so many extraordinary coincidences!

From the specific formation of Carbon-12, to the perfect positioning of the earth and moon in relation to the sun, to the perfect positioning of the moon around the earth (the moon helps stabilize the earth's wobble, creating a more stable climate and hence enabling life to have sprung up), and not to mention the most important point of all - the perfect type of star which our earth hurtles round at 19 miles a second...

And isn't it extraordinary that the moon's disc fits perfectly over the sun's during a total eclipse, because of the perfect calibration between all three, sun, earth and moon? Everything about life on earth looks like an incredible fluke or an Act of God...

Both carbon and oxygen are produced when helium burns inside of giant red stars, but it is Carbon-12 which is the crux of the matter. Carbon-12 can only form when three alpha particles, or helium-4 nuclei, combine in a very specific way... According to scientists, this level of specificity holds the key to enabling life.

Solstice:

sol = sun

sistere = to stand still

The relationship the earth has with the sun absolutely dictates the way we experience reality. Of course we can't know for sure whether the relationship the earth has with the sun, follows a number pattern that exists across the universe, and that all stars and planets follow in some form or other... But it is enough for us to know, that the patterns in our solar system govern the way we think.

Without precision instruments to show its movement, the sun appears to come to a standstill for three days at the winter solstice, on its journey south before climbing north again. Our thinking is deeply defined and bound by this event.

Without new life, our own existence hangs in the balance and for millenia we have looked to the heavens to know when the sun will restart its heavenly journey toward summer. At its lowest point, the downward movement intersects its lowest plane, symbolized by a cross, and at that dark moment, all is lost and yet astonishingly all is restored. From this point onward, the sun is resurrected! Does this sound familiar? Not only in the Christian tradition but other tradition across the world?

The similarities between the winter solstice, the passage of the sun across the heavens, rebirth, and the story of Jesus are interesting. The Nicene Creed states with regards to Jesus: "On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures". In fact, the New Testament can be read with the phrase 'Solar Worship' in mind, without too much effort.

Since the Romans got hold of Christianity, is it at all possible that they shaped Christianity to fit the beliefs of the as-yet non-Christian world? They were known for hybridizing religions, and allowing people whom they conquered, to continue worshiping as they had before they came, but within the format provided by the Empire.

Or is the solar worship evident in Scripture, a veiled attempt to keep the old beliefs alive, in covert form? We will never know for sure. But suffice to say, that even within Scripture, there are indications that the events were shaped by the actual dynamics of the earth-sun relationships.

And perhaps this isn't so surprising, considering that everything that we are, is due to the Sun, and the suns that came before. Our very humanity is intricately linked to the sun, and so, our reality.

Much of humanity still worships the sun, either unwittingly through solar based religions, or knowingly, perhaps through what is regarded as pagan practice. Some worship the sun through sunbathing, which is perhaps another way of expressing joy at the presence of the sun!

Others still, claim to receive more than just a feeling of warmth from the sun, but actual sustenance. Certain religions and spiritual groups also say that the sun's light is encoded with information that directly alters the genetic make-up of those who are receptive and enter into a relationship with the Sun/God.

Our sun is just one of 400 billion in our galaxy. Beyond that, there are an uncountable number of galaxies...

How much carbon is out there, and given an apparently infinite universe, isn't it likely that carbon-12 is arrived at in the right form to create life somewhere else?

There must be enough carbon out there...

...to create an infinite number of hair styles!

This was a fun hub to write. I hope you enjoyed reading it :-)

Have a great day.