Astronomical Mindfulness by Christopher G. De Pree

Author:Christopher G. De Pree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

The observer and the observed are the same entity.

RAGBIR BHATHAL, AUSTRALIAN ASTRONOMER AND AUTHOR, A LECTURER AT THE WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY

Astronomy classes today typically start with a review of the past few thousand years. In most textbooks, cosmic study begins with “ancient” astronomy as practiced by Babylonian and Greek scientists, and then jumps to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, portraying the rapid innovations in technology and theory that ushered in modern Western astronomy.

This sort of review misses the knowledge and understanding that stretch back tens of thousands of years. Take the Indigenous peoples of Australia, a continent that represented a jumping-off point for early travel to Polynesia. Those journeys were propelled by a detailed understanding of the motions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets that helped brave travelers navigate both space and time.

Ragbir Bhathal is an Australian astronomer and author, and a lecturer at the Western Sydney University. He recently pointed out the deep differences between modern-day, non-Native astronomy and astronomy as practiced by Native Australians:

In Aboriginal astronomy the origin of the universe goes back to a time called the Dreaming. . . . The Dreaming is not only an ancient era of creation but continues even today in the spiritual lives of the Aboriginal people. All life—human, animal, bird or fish—is part of an ever-transforming system that can be traced back to the Spirit Ancestors who go about the Earth in an eternal time called the Dreaming. As these spirit people roamed the Earth they made the mountains, rivers, the sky with its celestial objects and all the other features we see in the natural environment around us. The Aborigines are in fact co-creators of the universe they live in. The observer and the observed are the same entity.1

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