A sunset one evening, streamers of orange across the Western sky; another evening, soft pink blushing the clouds in East and West, and streamers glowing mauve and pink.  And I thought how very perfect this planet is, so very hospitable to burgeoning life.

Then another thought intrudes.  How narrow is our definition of life!  Of course this planet is perfect, we evolved here and know no other, we reshape it at our peril.  But what if life should be defined another way?  Not as the self-replicating activity of a certain pattern of elements but as the ability to perceive outside oneself, indeed to have a “self” with which to perceive.

What if intelligences exist which we cannot perceive?  Something  based perhaps on a different element, silicon instead of carbon?  Or with a completely different way of relating to the universe?  Perhaps even the rock at my feet, billions of years old, has an understanding and perception of its place in the universe far exceeding my fleeting carbon-based existence.

And from the infinite to the infinitesimal.  Do the bacteria whose DNA in my body vastly outnumbers the human DNA, do these beings partake of my perceptions, or do I partake of theirs, or are we together in an endless feedback loop every day gaining in knowledge and wisdom, increasing our understanding of the universe and our place in it?