Wonderbringers Newsletter with Monica Parker
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Hello Wonderseekers!
I, like most of the world, have been transfixed by the journey of Artemis II. The images being delivered back to Earth, combined with the very touching humanity of it all, have reminded me of what first triggered my fascination with wonderbringers. The wonder of space, and its impact on those who are fortunate enough to travel into its starry expanse, has always enthralled me. I thought this week I might share a story from my book, The Power of Wonder. Rereading it, I was struck by the parallels to today. How our first glimpses of planet Earth from space served as an awe-inspiring unifying force during a particularly tumultuous period in our human history.
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In July of 1969, 600 million people watched the moon landing on television. That moment remains one of the largest shared human experiences ever. After that “giant leap for mankind,” the world was never quite the same again. This global transformation had already begun six months prior when, on Christmas Eve of 1968, Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders snapped a photo called Earthrise—a poignant image of Earth as a small, fragile marble suspended in inky dark. Borders erased, nations and nationalities almost nonsensical constructs, this image confronted our most deeply held beliefs about humankind’s place in the universe and set in motion a defining moment of the twentieth century.
Nineteen sixty-eight marked a period of massive turbulence worldwide—scenes of the Vietnam War beamed into homes, the May 68 student riots in Paris, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., followed by Robert Kennedy only two months later. Humanity was having a violent reckoning with itself. The Earthrise photo and seeing the whole Earth for the first time in human history jolted people out of their individual egoic concerns, turning their eyes heavenward. Earthrise (and a subsequent photo entitled Blue Marble) has since become the most widely disseminated image in human history, changing our relationship with this shared common home.
Our journey into space changed humanity’s relationship with itself, but we Earthlings weren’t the only ones affected. The astronauts, upon returning, were fundamentally changed, too. When Apollo 9 Lunar Module pilot Russell “Rusty” Schweickart saw the Earth from space, he said, “From the moon, the Earth is so small and so fragile and such a precious little spot in that universe that you can block it out with your thumb. Then you realize that on that spot, that little blue and white thing, is everything that means anything to you—all of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love, tears, joy, games, all of it right there on that little spot that you can cover with your thumb. And you realize from that perspective that you’ve changed forever, that there is something new there, that the relationship is no longer what it was.”
Commander Schweickart was eloquently describing the “Overview Effect” and the metamorphic power of wonder. A term coined in 1987 by space writer Frank White, the Overview Effect describes the unexpected, powerful, and profound shift in perspective astronauts experience when they view the Earth from space. White described those fundamental, enduring shifts as “truly transformative experiences involving senses of wonder and awe, unity with nature, transcendence, and universal brotherhood.”
And the astronauts were not oblivious to the challenges back home, nor the Overview Effect’s potential to unify across nations and ideologies. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who spent a record-breaking 166 days in space, explained it this way: “It was when I took a picture, actually, of Karachi, Pakistan, and I read what I wrote about it the next day, which was: ‘There are 6 million of us living in Pakistan.’ Six million of ‘us’? When is that no longer ‘them’? How did that part of the world, which I’ve never even been to, now, suddenly, because of the cumulative effect of where I am, start to feel like us? I think that’s when the world became one place for me.”
Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell put it a bit more succinctly, saying, “From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”
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Look at that, indeed. Wishing Artemis II a safe return home to our little blue dot. Thank you for reminding us once again of our shared humanity and innate sense of wonder.
Some wonderbringers for me this week:
In an echo of Apollo 8: NASA’s Artemis II astronauts capture stunning ‘Earthrise’ and ‘Earthset’.
An incredibly weird time to be alive: The world witnessed the best and worst of humanity in a single week.
The ‘panzoic effect’: The benefits of thinking about alien life.
Next week, I’ll be sharing the results from the Wonderbringers readers’ survey and some changes for the future. Thanks again to everyone who participated!
With wonder,
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