Finding Joy on Spaceship Earth

by Fran Withrow 09.2023

Most of us focus on the everyday things of life: fixing meals, getting kids off to school, going to work. The yard needs to be mowed, we have to buy groceries, the next door neighbor is annoying, and the laundry never gets caught up. 

If we do stop to take a breath, it is only to read emails, scroll through social media, and peruse the never-ending dismal news about climate change and politics. There is grief everywhere.

But “the broken world is a yearning world,” writes Marjolijn van Heemstra, who was knee deep in this kind of life herself. She was living with her fiance and two children during a heat wave in the Netherlands when she found a photo of earth taken by the Hubble telescope. This photo introduced her to the overview effect: a way of looking at the world as astronauts do, which in turn led to her lovely book, “In Light-Years There’s No Hurry.

As astronauts view earth from afar, many of them realize how beautiful and how vulnerable it is. That love follows them back home and imbues them with the desire to protect and care for this planet. Seeing ourselves on a “colorful, compact ship through space” can help us change the narrative about what is important and how we can live lives of joy and meaning.

The overview effect allows us to see how connected we all are; how there is more that unites us than divides us. We are all together on this little planet, hurtling through space, but most of us are oblivious to the big picture because we can’t see earth from afar.

So how can we non-astronauts experience the overview effect? Van Heemstra says that looking at the night sky can help us realize how vast and awe-inspiring the universe is. Light pollution means most of us can’t see enough stars to experience the overview effect, but there are alternatives, like the moon.

The moon is full of magic, but van Heemstra realizes that it may eventually become the object of a turf war as countries try to claim parts of it for themselves. This leads her to talk with experts about Mars exploration, the search for extraterrestrial life, and galaxies and planets that are light-years away. She realizes that the further we zoom out from this planet, the deeper our connections with it become.

Van Heemstra responds to all this in part by organizing a Night Watch, so her neighbors can come together to walk at night and experience darkness (and therefore space) in novel ways. The beauty of darkness encourages them to work to reduce light pollution, to search for stars and constellations, and to experience with gratitude the joy of being in this world. To find connections where there were none before. To explore the idea that in light-years, there’s no hurry. And to feel deep awe for this planet that sustains us, that we so easily take for granted, that is just waiting for us to wake up and take notice.