They keep talking about these new star clusters they find. They also seem to be finding a lot of planets these days too. As they show us the current concept of what the galaxy looks like and what the Ober-galaxy looks like we see these little gnat-swarms of stars and star clusters and galaxies all spinning and swirling. Now some of these galaxies are billions of light years away and are moving fairly fast and evolving as they are revolving. So the picture you see on the screen of your TV is a snapshot of that galaxy. The galaxy next to it and just above is slightly younger, but nevertheless billions of light years away and billions of years old. So if you thought about NOW you would expect them to look differently. The whole thing has by now spun into various paths and configurations, sudden accidents we didn't expect, some black holes we didn't know were there, tearing apart and swallowing the galaxy unlucky enough to wander near. Everything they tell you is wrong.

Now look out your window at the house next door. It, too, has changed since you looked. It's much closer, but still those light wavicles bouncing into your retinas are old, has-been bits of phtonic energy. The house has moved, the paint has faded. Down further we wander with our outdated vision onto the pavement and down Route 9 towards Saratoga. Cars coming at us, all older than we see, the drivers aged. One driver may start frowning at a radio show and the frown is started while we see the smile and expect a happy motorist. But by the time the body catches up with the vision, they are unhappy.

If we had shorter vision or longer sight we could look down Route 9 and see into the 50's at the hot rods and Buicks. Further down we see the carriages and horses and people hiking. Eventually the road turns into a path and then into a trail and firther back, dim against the sun we see large creatures covered in fur ambling past the ice cap. All older, all moved on.

Our reality is outdated by the time we analyze it. By the time we think about it the universe has changed. Our planet absorbed by an expanding sun, rudy and sullen and hungry. Our tiny souls drifting into the akasha planes before we can plan the trip. All time is relative, all existence is smeared and blurred by distance. This acheing body, this sad smile, all gone and drifted away by the time another observer can turn their head and see us. This rain has already begun to turn into a plant. This plant has already gone to seed. The snow has melted away to spring somewhere and am just now firing up the furnace. We're always behind and before.

How do we know if we are going backwards in time? If we are playing catch-up with the vision of the universe, flying backards into those strange days gone by when that star and that person and that plant all lived and moved and thought about things, when will we know the present? Behind us is our fate and yet we fuss about the rain that falls and smells so good but leaks into the bedroom and keeps me up at night. Al those glaciers gone flying backwards onto the summits and leaping up into the air as snow and ice and then falling back as mist into the mother womb of the sea.

Sometimes the lines converge. Sometimes one man's past is another man's future. Sometimes a child can save a mother.

The big bang may have been a crash. All things might have rushed into a common hole and this universe we see, this ALL that we look to, may just be a backwards searching memory, a life-passing-before-you kind of thing and everything we thought we did, we undid. Everything we got, every person we met we lost. But relative to everything we can see, there is a past and a future, we just sometimes get confused between the two.

If the universe is infinite and our souls are released upon physical death to live forever in the Glory and all that, then this bit of life is a hiccup and the long drawn out sigh of life is yet to come. We have plenty of time to look at all those stars, forwards and backwards. Time is relative and so are we.