Deep-Space Ambiguity

As the hart panteth for the water brooks, so panteth my soul for Thee, O God. 

(Psa 42:1)

Deep Space. Deep Space Tracking Station. Deep Space Network. Deep Space Communications Complex. I wondered, "Why not Far Space?" And Far Space Tracking Stations and Networks? Why Deep? "Deep" seemed subliminally, spiritually, and deliberately ambiguous to me.

Webster's Dictionary [1880] defines:

Ambiguous [Lat. ambiguus, from ambigere, to wander about with irresolute mind] Doubtful or uncertain, particularly in respect to signification; equivocal; as, an ambiguous  course; an ambiguous  expression.
What have been thy answers what but dark,Ambiguous, and with double sense-deluding.   Milton

"Nebulous".....now there's another spaced-out synonym.

"Deep Space" terms seem to suggest not only something "far out" but also "deep within". For me "deep space" has a psychological or spiritual connotation. At Hartebeesthoek, one of the original three Deep Space Instrumentation Facilities of the early 1960s, we were not only probing deep space, we were also, unconsciously perhaps, engaged on a journey inward.

Heart Nebula

Even the etymology of "Hartebeesthoek" implied something more. The word derives from Dutch, from hart  deer + beest  beast + hoek  corner. Hart is akin to "horn" and refers to the antlers. The "hartebeest"  is an antelope. Merriam-Webster traces the word "deer" to "Middle English, deer, animal, from Old English deor  beast; akin to Old High German tior  wild animal, Lithuanian dvasia  breath, spirit". In Afrikaans, though not etymologically related, hart  not only means "deer" but it is also the word for "heart". In Psalm 42:1 the hart becomes the symbol of the spirit. So Hartebeesthoek came to symbolise for me that "corner" within my own heart that encompassed the immensity of deep space!

The Hindu Scriptures must surely count among the most beautiful and inspiring in the World. The Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads are among my favourites. In the Chandogya Upanishad is this beautiful "deep space" gem:

OM.  In the center of the castle of Brahman, our own body, there is a small shrine in the form of a lotus-flower, and within can be found a small space.  We should find who dwells there, and we should want to know him.
And if anyone asks, "Who is he who dwells in a small shrine in the form of a lotus flower in the center of the castle of Brahman?  Whom should we want to find and to know?" we can answer:
"The little space within the heart is as great as this vast universe.  The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars; fire and lightning and winds are there; and all that now is and all that is not: for the whole universe is in Him and He dwells within our heart." (Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7)

It is a thought not alien to Christianity either.

In the words of Augustine (De Lib. Arb., II.41), "Wherever you turn, by certain traces which wisdom has impressed on her works, she speaks to you, and recalls you within, gliding back into interior things by the very forms of exterior things."

William Law (A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life) put it this way, "The outward world is but a glass, or representation of the inward; and every thing and variety of things in temporal nature must have its root, or hidden cause, in something that is more inward."

"All our greatest philosophers and theologians unanimously assert that the visible universe is a faithful reflection of the invisible," says Nicholas of Cusa (Of Learned Ignorance,I.xi).

Scanning the skies with deep space antennas is, in a way,  a scansion of, and a panting for the Divine Imprint within.

In conclusion, a thought for Holy Week...

"Think, dear friend, reflect on the world that you carry within yourself. And name this thinking what you wish. it might be recollections of your childhood or yearning for your own future. Just be sure that you observe carefully what wells up within you and place that above everything that you notice around you. Your innermost happening is worth all your love. You must somehow work on that." -- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet


©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za