Lyrics: Starry, starry night/ paint your palette blue and grey/ Look out on a summer’s day/ with eyes that know the darkness of my soul.
Imagine wanting to grow up to be an astrophysicist. After a visit to the Hayden Planetarium at age ten, that’s all Neil deGrasse Tyson ever wanted to be and now he’s Director of the Hayden Planetarium. After watching him on 60 Minutes I had to Google for more of his boyish enthusiasm and adult passion for the stars, universe, the cosmos, and his explanation of why we humans are made of stardust. Then I watched him on YouTube being interviewed by that brilliant zany, Stephen Colbert. I was left wondering if he’s one of the scientists who believes in a higher power, that creative spiritual force called God. Science can’t prove God and because of that inadequacy science then denies Her for lack of proof. I can’t prove Her either but I know that the scientific method is limited because I’ve experienced the scientific unexplainable.
I believe the same could have been true for the artist Vincent Van Gogh. What did he actually see when painting that starry night? Musician, Don McLean, had a special sensitivity to the artist and perhaps because of my many years as a nurse in a psychiatric setting, I, too, suffered for his sanity. Did Van Gogh during the depth of his psychosis actually see the turbulence of his starry night that is generally considered the last unsolved mystery of classical physics? “Is it possible that Van Gogh’s mind, warped by disease, was prepared to grasp phenomena that have baffled physicists for centuries?” (Discover Magazine/Kathryn Garfield) I think of all the times I’ve spent listening to psychotic patient’s delusional talk and felt I understood on some level what they were experiencing, “what you tried to say to me,” wanting to understand the particle of truth in their delusion. There is that fine line between sanity and insanity and artists often butt up to the edge.
Science can’t prove there is a higher power, nor can science disprove it. For that matter, institutionalize religion can’t prove it either. Religion can only talk about what they believe to be true from reports from others, and religions don’t agree on that. It’s why we turn to artists, poets, and nature.
Why am I thinking about Neil deGrasse Tyson and Vincent Van Gogh on a summer’s day? Because I’m supposed to; because if I’m to become a sage and Spiritual Elder I must continue to grow mentally and spiritually and that requires that I wonder, ponder on the unknown, and satisfy my curiosity. That’s how we grow and evolve at every age. Today I’m curious about stars, the cosmos, and Van Gogh’s turbulence. Next, I’m going to be curious about goose bumps — the Blue Angels are in town. What are you curious about?
Lyrics: Starry, starry night/ Flaming flowers that brightly blaze/ Swirling clouds in violet haze/ Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue. (Don McLean’s hit song, Vincent.)
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