Hello readers! Our new workshop Relationship Tripping has launched. Come join us tomorrow, Saturday, Feb 12th, from 3-5 PM, in our new rocket ship: Love Lab 101 where we will explore the “overview effect” — states of awe, wonder, and curiosity that we can create in relationships. Come play with us. More info at the bottom of this newsletter.
On December 7th, 1972, three astronauts aboard Apollo 17 were granted a view that no humans had seen before. They had blasted off from Earth only five hours earlier and were busy preparing for their lunar landing. But, for a brief moment, 28,000 miles away from home, they paused to take in the sight: a complete view of Planet Earth, the African continent lit by the afternoon sun, Antarctica illuminated by the December solstice.
Astronaut Gene Cernan said of the moment, "You can see from pole to pole and across oceans and continents and you can watch it turn and there's no strings holding it up, and it's moving in a blackness that is almost beyond conception.”
Our concept of Earth is at once a lived experience and also the constructs that we learn from an early age. Dotted lines delineate countries. Time zones, and gravity feel absolute. Standing on East 7th Street, New York City encompasses my entire view. But from outer space, the Earth is floating against a sea of black. We are in an infinite cosmos.
The photo taken from the window of Apollo 17 created an immediate sensation. It was printed on the front page of nearly every newspaper. The Blue Marble, as the photo has come to be called, helped spur the environmental movement. It has been used to sell products and to encourage humans across the globe to unite in our common humanity.
It is "a glimpse of divinity," said astronaut Edgar Mitchell, in his attempt to describe the feeling of becoming one with the universe. "I don't know how you can come back and not, in some way, be changed," said Nicole Stott of her voyage into space. The few humans who have been far enough away to see Earth from this vantage point share an experience so prevalent that it was given a name – the “overview effect.”
You may have experienced it, too, in a plane ascending above the clouds over the Rockies or looking down on the patchwork of farms over the midwest. It is in these moments, brief as they may be, when we experience a shift in perspective so radical that we know - not in our minds but our entire being - that although we are all different, with our own beliefs and politics, religion and desires for the future, we are all connected. We are a part of something vast and stunningly beautiful.
Humans are not designed to be in a state of wonder all the time. Awe is all-consuming. We have things we need to do, places we need to be. At any moment we are receiving billions of bits of data, parsing through them to determine which ones threaten our survival.
We seek safety and routine. Like animals that nest and burrow, we need a place we can call home so we can relax. We create structure and institutions so we can turn our worlds into stable, reliable environments. I am writing this at the kitchen table where Joe and our daughters are eating breakfast. They will head out the door to school in a few minutes and I will insist on a hug before they go.
Home can lure us into complacency. When we are safe, we coast on default mode, forgetting that it is just a temporary perch, a liminal state between birth and death.
It’s unlikely that you and I will get to see the blue marble with our own eyes, but “the overview effect” is available to us at any moment.
It is a matter of attention, of choosing awe in the most mundane, ordinary places. The overview effect is in the purple spirals in a sliced cabbage or the cooing of a dove at dawn. It is the smooth satin finish of a clean dish and the soft flesh of a dog exposing her belly for a rub.
But the overview effect is most vibrant when we see our homes, ourselves, the familiar from a new vantage point. We don’t need rocket fuel to get past our orbit. Home looks different when we ride the bus to the end of the line and explore a new neighborhood. Time takes on new dimensions when we dance or make love or get lost in a sonata. Scale becomes abstract when we watch a caravan of ants carrying leaves back to their colony. Perhaps this is a kind of prayer - the moments we experience our connection to the Earth with a fresh understanding of our place in the cosmos.
FROM THE INSTITUTE OF PLEASURE STUDIES
Relationship Tripping has launched. Come join us tomorrow, Saturday, Feb 12th, from 3-5 PM, in our new rocket ship: Love Lab 101. Joe and I will lead you and your partner through a few of the practices that have been our “overview effect.” Come with your partner or come self-partnered for a 90-minute lab where we will experiment with communication tools and partnered exercises. In the end, we will share about the 6-week program we are offering for couples to find states of awe, wonder, curiosity in your relationship. Our motto: “We get to do this.” Come play with us. Email me if you want more info.
Aeon, a digital magazine of "ideas, philosophy and culture," has created a lovely video with time-lapse imagery of our planet as seen from the International Space Station.
Ohhh so dreamy and yummy