Recently, my family and I walked the Jumbo circuit in the Tararua Mountains, a stunning three-day tramp, much of it above the bush line.  I have to admit the climb was a bit of a challenge for someone like me who is slightly past their tramping prime, but so worth it.

At Powell Hut, I am awake at 2am.  The stars!  Scorpio spread out across the sky, the Milky Way, the Coalsack nebula, and the Magellanic Clouds, each another separate galaxy.  The night sky soars above me, so huge and glorious.

And what is my place in this vastness?

I am one human of many. Humanity is one species of many.  Our planet is one of many.  Our galaxy is one of many.

I am so small in comparison.  Tiny.  Insignificant.

Or am I?

Compared to cells that make up my body, I am like a galaxy.  Compared to the molecules, atoms and subatomic particles in those cells, I am like the universe.

From one perspective, I am small.  From the other, I am vast.  I am a universe within a universe.

So, although I am small, I am also significant.  I have a place in this vastness.

And that place, surely, is to contribute to the greater good which I am part of – our communities, our human species, all other species, our planet.

This is not the message we receive in our late stage capitalist world, which instead tells us to think “I” not “we”, to take instead of to give, to dominate not tolerate, to see the world as a marketplace, and everything within it as commodities.

So let’s not listen to those messages.  Let’s instead listen to the stars.  Know your place, they say.  You are small.  You are significant. You belong here.

And what matters most is our contribution to the greater good to which we all belong.