Quick Summary:

13.8 billion years ago all of the matter in the Universe—compacted into a ball of infinite density, gravity, and heat—suddenly burst its bonds and the universe exploded into being with a BIG BANG. Everything that exists traces its origins back to that singular moment. My dust was there, as was yours, and it’s all returning to dust. Nature’s recycling plan on the grandest scale imaginable.

REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE DUST AND TO DUST YOU SHALL RETURN.

These words make me inescapably aware of my individual mortality while at the same time they link me to the macrocosmic cycle of transformation, of turning and returning, of going out and coming back, of death and rebirth.
Our lives—the very cells of which our bodies are composed—are not our own. We did not will ourselves into existence, neither will we chose when or how our lives on this Earth will end. All that might be said is, we return to the hand that flung us out, we return to the one whose imagination, whose largess, whose grace, continue to intrigue and confound, surprise and dumbfound us.

REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE DUST AND TO DUST YOU SHALL RETURN.