Whenever I am overwhelmed by my daily challenges, I can look at pictures of our solar system, nebulas, and galaxies for a reminder of how vast the mysteries of the universe are and how I need to keep things in perspective. 

I also use poetry to think about the seen and unseen world and let my imagination flow. In addition to thinking about the size of the universe, I remember when I was in high school learning about the universe within each of us – tiny organisms that we cannot see without a powerful microscope. To those organisms we are the solar system, nebula or galaxy!

Years after the biology class, I wrote the following:

The Storm

What if, inside the eye of a needle, whole worlds existed?

People in little steel towns with silver soil that could not be cultivated

reaching for strands from the giant worm that periodically blacks out their sky.

What if, inside the binding of a book, a community lived?

People hunting dust mites for food and living in musty darkness, attributing the

movement of the book to an earthquake, living out their lives in the smell of ancient stories.

How would your perceptions change?

Creatures, scientists say, live on people’s eyelashes, and 

when we cry they experience a salty storm.  

They harm no one, and go on with life, content that what they see isn’t what they get,

not knowing the massive giant they rest upon, not knowing what the storms mean.

By: Amanda Cook

Always, I am humbled and amazed at the vastness of the universe and all the life that is around me that I cannot see. No matter what is bothering me today, I need to remember that there is beauty all around us.