Cosmic Reverence

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both."

- Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Postscript. This image was captured in Galicia, Spain last week during the slightly-over-one-minute in duration total solar eclipse. While my family and I witnessed a much longer (>3.5 min) eclipse in Baxter State Park (in Maine) in 2024, this one was special since it took place during a pilgrimage of sorts to where my wife's father's side of the family has been living for centuries. For those of you not lucky enough to experience a total eclipse in person, the image above hardly does justice to feeling the magic of the sun suddenly disappearing to nothingness while still suspended in the sky. The physicist in me was as slack-jawed at the spectacle as my spiritual side was awed by the living cosmos.