Summer of Stars

On our very first date, Eric and I discovered a surprising symmetry in our lives. Huddled over warm drinks on a cold January night, we talked about our fields of study at Berkeley: Eric was working on his PhD in astrophysics, and I was working on mine in Russian literature. I was very excited to get some street cred by telling him about the astronomy class I’d taken as an undergrad. I wasn’t expecting him to volley back by telling me about the Russian literature course he’d taken as an undergrad. What were the odds?! It was one of many reasons we both left the cafe glowing.

For as long as I’ve known Eric, the cosmos has been a part of our shared life. I visited him on balloon campaigns, took in the skies with him on many trips to Palomar Observatory, and brought him dinner when he was observing remotely from a Caltech basement. When we drove past his building on campus, our then-toddler would point and exclaim, “Daddy is an astronomer!”

We moved to Seattle in 2017 for Eric to take a new job at UW working on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. Astronomical projects span decades, though, and this one has been underway since it began as a napkin sketch back in 1998.

This summer, the telescope finally went on sky and released its first images. From Eric’s parents’ farm, we watched the press conference and felt our hearts burst with pride, for Eric, of course, but also for everyone on the huge team that has brought this project to fruition. As Rubin made headlines all over the world, we celebrated the much-needed dose of joy in its discoveries, and the just-as-needed reminder that beauty and mystery extend far beyond what we can see from our limited vantage point as individual humans in the year 2025.

We came back to Seattle just in time for a UW celebration, and, lucky ducks that we are, our sweet neighbors offered to keep our boys so that I could go with Eric.

I can’t tell you how meaningful it was to be there, in an auditorium packed with hundreds of people, to see Eric’s name on so many of the slides, to hear his name called as an integral part of the project. I’ve known this project in very granular terms for the better part of a decade. I know when the meetings run long, when there are decisions to be made, messages to be answered urgently. But I hadn’t zoomed out to take the wide view.

What Rubin is doing is pretty unbelievable. It’s the largest all-sky survey…ever. We’d need 400 tv screens laid out on a football field to see even one complete image taken by the camera. And it’s not just static images. Rubin is carrying out a ten-year time-lapse survey that will allow us to detect and track things we have literally never seen before: supernovae, comets, asteroids, distant galaxies. It’s almost like we can quietly creep up on the greatest creature imaginable…and watch it breathing.

Celebrating Eric and the team reminded me of the necessity of stepping back and wondering at the work we’ve done and the things we’ve accomplished, especially when our work doesn’t necessarily feel like it will ever be “done.” It reminded me of the wisdom of Teilhard de Chardin’s words: “Trust in the slow work of God.”

I think I needed the reminder that incredible beauty is all around us, even if we can’t see it with our naked eyes. Great swirling galaxies, mysteries untold, extending somewhere far out beyond us. Great swirling galaxies, mysteries untold, ever growing and changing within us, just waiting to be brought into the light.

Seeing the movement within the universe nudges me, too, to celebrate the movement within myself, as I wax and wane, by turns burning bright and shining faintly, always in a perpetual state of becoming—spiritually, emotionally, intellectually. That’s true for all of us. And it’s worth marveling at, worth listening for in the ongoing, unfolding song that, if we pay close enough attention, we can hear being sung by all of creation.

A Few Hopeful Things:

—Summer here consists of a lot of summer camp driving, days spent on the water slathering on sunscreen, and, most importantly, FRUIT. This is the first year we’ve had both blackberries and blueberries in the front yard, and while I can claim no gardening credit, I am taking wild joy in the harvest.

—I used to have lots of hobbies before I had kids, and I’ll return to them someday, but for now I put all my hobby energy into reading, and it never disappoints me. For the first time ever, I am doing the public library’s summer book bingo program, and it is so much fun! I’ve read so many great books and can’t wait to tell you about all of them (buckle up, it’s going to be a long post). I maintain, the library is the greatest of all public institutions. Alleluia and amen.

—I’d hoped to get this post out yesterday for the feast of St. Ignatius, but alas! I’m one day late. However, I wrote a bit more about spirituality and astronomy in the Ignatian tradition for my friends at the Jesuit Conference, along with a prayer for us. I’d really hoped to be here a bit more this summer, but…book edits! Devotional writing! (More on that soon).

Celebrating every mystery with you,
Cameron