The Geniture Mill

by Shaun Lawton

Millions of nascency factories exist scattered

 throughout our universe, we call them stars.   

Their huge nests resemble gigantic spinning 

hives from whose center seeds are spat out. 

These seeds take root in empty space at various 

distances from the astral womb nexus.
The stellar generating machines birth their 

planets one cosmic stone at a time carefully. 

It takes an immense period for all eight stones 

to be delivered to their respective orbits. 
At varying distances the different temperatures 

and conditions generate distinct aspects. 

The four inner planets may be considered the 

New Testament in the living gospel of star.
The four outer ones are the Old Testament 

Gas Giants whose role is vital in the process.

~Welcome to our new age of solar existence~




 

ship of imagination

by Shaun Lawton

Now that I've watched and listened to Neil deGrasse Tyson guide us through the earlier stages of our universe in the souped up and absolutely marvelous reboot of Carl Sagan's COSMOS for the Twenty-Teens, I can honestly say that was some of the best damn television that I ever subjected myself to.

I mean, the scene where the chrome seedpod ship of the imagination dives under a hydrocarbon lake on the surface of Titan disappearing like a dorsal fin, that is quality programming.  When he tells us earlier on in the second episode that artificial selection has made wolves into shepherds, I know he's already won me over and even if that's really Carl speaking from beyond Eden's grave with a dragon's tongue, it effectively summarizes a reciprocal value in evolution's long term design, for me.

Just the simple knowledge that we have yet to discover all the varieties of species in the living kingdom and furthermore that a massive percentage have already become extinct right here on this planet should be enough to command the attention of every science fiction and dreamer of extraterrestrial life forms without exception.

Nailed into my mind repeatedly throughout my life is the notion that we are the aliens, that this is the place--the afterlife, whatever you want to call it--and the only point in space which is manifesting all the variants of possibility in the empire of existence.  The reasons for this are plentiful and far from arbitrary, least of which lies the implication that even if there were "other" forms of life "out there" as we so happen to fervently love to suppose to the point there's an entire industry surrounding this quest, it wouldn't matter in the slightest due to the fact we are like it or not caught up here in this particular subsection of the galactic continuum, and no thing, no dreaming certainly because no action whatsoever we may take in this physical universe could ever amount to anything remotely having anything to do with any conceivable type of interaction with 'those' beings on account of their having existed so long ago that their extinction has been glorified into nebulae since time immemorial for us, but never mind the fact we ourselves are hurtling through space at unbelievable speeds whipping about our star here along this out thrust spiral arm of a young barred galaxy, because whatever the case may be for each galaxy or solar system, our case is unfolding even now as we speak so if you'll pardon me, I've got to go and do the things I love, like read and write and listen to music and hang out with my family.  Looking for adventure.  Right here and now with this single opportunity we've been given.

sapience examining itself

by Shaun Lawton

Existence appears as a very peculiar condition to the homo sapien like you.  There seems to be no such thing as separation to the homo sapien like you.   Life forms fit together like metacarpals in a universal body to the homo sapien like you.  Human babies are extensions of their parents to a homo sapien such as yourself. 

The very idea of separateness seems irrational to you. Unknown power must reside within imagination itself, you're thinking. Anything that may be conceived by the mind can become real, you're realizing.  Mankind  invents new ways of alienating itself we believe.   

Humanity remains unique to this solar system if you ask us. Perhaps our destiny will be to create separateness, ya think? Every star of this galaxy might spawn its own form of life, so long as we get what's ours.  Every sentence in this essay appears to be sincere self-reflection. Not that it won't affect those who read it with rejection. 

Sapience

by Shaun Lawton

Existence appears as a very peculiar condition. 


There seems to be no such thing as separation.  

Life forms fit together like metacarpals in a universal body.

Human babies are extensions of their parents.


The very idea of separateness seems irrational. 

Unknown power must reside within imagination itself. 

Anything that may be conceived by the mind can become real. 


Mankind  invents new ways of alienating itself.   

Humanity remains unique to this solar system.  

Perhaps our destiny will be to create separateness.


Every star of this galaxy might spawn its own form of life.
 

Plague for Plague

by Shaun Lawton

1st Maxim of futurological imaginings arrived at by a process of eliminating the imagined:

"After establishing new idea, then research to find it already in the historical archive"

Only until after this has been done may we rest assured our idea might be new.


For instance, the recent discovery that healthy fleas spread contagion now has deep implications the least of which is what to do with all these healthy beings spreading that particular disease?

If I look up the socially acceptable term for starving people in order to maintain disease control, I'm sure to find it archived somewhere as common practice back when Rome was in power or something.

So I must ask myself . . .  .what's the scientific or professional term for intentionally starving a populace?  Aside from the Ukrainian term Holodomor, I'm not sure this phenomenon was especially popular in the approved registry's side of history's recollections.  

One plague for another. 
Must we imagine a hunger plague 

forced upon a certain demographic 

for being carriers of a particular disease,

 or just register it as historically 

repeated fact? Plague for plague, 

if we don't learn from our mistakes, 

we've already sealed our pact. 

Lucidus Terminus

by Shaun Lawton

 The problem with our understanding of light begins with our insistence to treat outer space like water or any other elemental cocktail for that matter.  

Scientists have been asking about the medium that this electromagnetic wavelength would travel through  for ages yet have they considered their vacuum to be that condition without medium and therefore concluded indefatigably that the light crosses the void?  

It appears they have not for they are yet seeking to understand cosmic truths on their own terms.  

That is all well and good but we must ask ourselves have they sought to understand themselves as of yet?  

I'm afraid not,  otherwise they would know we are of the stars.  

Of this one thing I can remain certain due to an inescapable chain of perfect logical association.  

For what are the stars we see magnified when we peer through our most powerful telescopes but the images reaching us projected from before their long ago demise?  

But what does that even mean?  

The answer is simple and has been staring us in the face all of our lives. 

It means we are still alive.   

We are right now that one Sun out there blazing bright throughout the eternal night that are yet alive to experience the incredible rush of our headlong flight.  

As to another world and another time, "So what!" I exclaim.  

Our world here now still burns in its familiar glow.  

As humans our sight is granted in part by the presence of light itself which is picked up on (through our eyes) as the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.  

Light is thought to be emitted and absorbed in tiny "packets" referred to as photons.  

Many photons are referred to as quanta. 

Photons are sort of imaginary particles we've devised in order to help us comprehend the nature of light and radiation itself.   

Non-ionizing radiation includes radio waves, heat and the visible light that reaches us from our Sun  (as opposed to ionizing radiation which is ultraviolet light, X-rays and gamma-rays reaching us from way beyond our lone isolated star).

Nestled in between the invisible shorter ultraviolet and the longer invisible infrared wavelengths we are comfortably placed in a cradle of visible light.   

Light exhibits wave-particle duality like any form of electromagnetic radiation.   

The spectrum goes something like this:  

|radio, microwave, infrared...
visible light 
...ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma-rays|

This spectrum should offer us a clue as to the property of our existence out here circling this lone star gracing a spiral arm of our slowly rotating galaxy.   

We emerged from an old radio broadcast that overheated and squeezed us out of the infrared zone until after another period of cooling off which we are all enjoying very much we will ultimately overheat once again going supernova and beyond into the ultraviolet as gamma-rays ourselves.  

We are not yet stardust. 

  

 

watercolor by Shaun Lawton