I think one of the most astounding things is coincidences...like when you think of a person you haven't seen in years, then run into them an hour later. Or, today, I accidentally did something that turned out to be a really good idea that might help someone...then I thought, "Wow--I did that, but I had no conscious control over doing that. Huh." Those things are astounding...yet, we get used to them.

Yeah I've had co-incidences like that. They're amazing. Especially when it's someone important to you, and you were writting them an unsendable letter the day before, and dreamt that night that you ran into them, then you did the next day after not seeing them for over a year. Boy, was that fate! Another time, I was reminding myself what this particular lady's name was and how she looks different from two other ladies with similar haircuts, incase I were to see her, then she popped around the corner and I hadn't seen her in a year either.

Gonna watch the clip before replying. He's a cool guy, DeGrasse Tyson. I love that line, "makes me want to grab people on the street and say, Have you heard this!?!"

I just had my fourth grandchild, a little girl. It took nine months before I could know her and everytime I hold her and snuggle with her, I wonder......where were you before you came to us? I look at her innocence and wonder how family and the world will shape her. It's still amazing to me.....this miracle of life.....another universe that dwells inside a woman's body creating another life,very similar to your video above Innana only it's happening inside of a mother's body. It happens everyday, someone is born,yet it still boggles my imagination!

Love the video and the insights.

Most astounding for me has been the communion I have had and continue to have with other species, especially whales.  When we make eye contact I realize an ancient knowledge, understanding...discernment....and a confidence that what I am seeing there is an intelligence that far surpasses my own and that of the human race.

Humpback whales were singing beautifully complex songs to communicate with each other long before humans appeared on earth and articulated their first primitive sounds.

Hi Kimmio:

The most astounding event of that kind happened when my wife and I drove to town, and on the way there talked about a friend whom we hadn't seen in decades and not talked about in years. When we got to town and checked our PO box, there was a card from her!

My explanation for such amazing coincidences is that our thoughts radiate out into the universe and can be picked up by anyone who is perceptive: the "vibes" that you talked about on a different thread.

Hi Inanna:

The most astounding fact about my reality are not my mystical experiences but the fact that I believe, and have proof, that I can actually change or create my reality with my thinking. And I believe we all have the power of actualising the creator within.

Innana - I am *so* using that in two Sundays! WOW! Thank you!

The most astounding fact? I'll have to think about that one.

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The astounding thing to me is consciousness — and, in particular, our inate capacity to experience beauty, excitement, love, curiosity… to discern narratives in everything we experience, to discover meaning in life, and to work these together into emotions like joy, gratitude and hope. So much of what we has the capacity to open freely to delight. None of this is absolutely necessary to bare survival… if feels like gift.

Suns collapse all the time. But very little "sun stuff" (which is pretty much every element heavier than hydrogen) has access to any of this.

For it to become animated is startling enough… for it to attain consciousness is so stunningly amazing I can experience vertigo at the thought of it.

The most astounding fact?

Our life has purpose. We are all part of the universe -thus we all connected.......

We are all made of star stuff.

It is our common ancestry..........

When we die the oxygen, carbon,hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorous that made up 99% of our mass becomes something new.

Thus, we don't die, we become recycled.

We are part of an ongoing process.........

Isn't that truly astounding?

How do I experience this astounding continuity?

I swim each summer in the Pacific ocean - where the temperature, like Goldilock's porridge, is "just right".

That night, a wonderful soothing natural tiredness envelops me and I sleep soundly.

I know then that we did indeed come from the sea - my body experiences this remarkable history............

Well, one astounding fact as pertains to this thread, is that Neil deGrasse Tyson’s astounding fact is actually just an astounding theory.

People will believe anything to avoid the fact of the existence of God. A chance explosion and ‘voila’ – Life!

Yet even though we are made of the same ingredients – dirt – as the bible says, these brainiacs cannot replicate step one of the beginning of life with everything they have to throw at it.

Why can’t the smartest people on the entire planet – working together for what – over 150 yrs since Darwin now – make one life form, which they claim happened by chance?

My astounding fact is that there is far more of God’s understanding of life contained in one carrot seed than in the combined knowledge of every human being on the planet.  It’s right there – yet beyond comprehension.

Cinematic Orchestra is pretty good too!

… or a bag of bird seed?

(We've tried bird-seed, but we just get grassy stuff coming up. I was hoping for a crop of parrots last summer… zilch!)

Gecko: That's so neat about whales.

Waterfall: I know what you mean. That whole 9 months I had the unioverse in my belly I wondered about it, and dreamt about it, then when he was born I watched to look for any clues about it.

Pilgrim: Yeahhhh. : )

My astounding fact would be:

That everything works. The feeling I get when the penny drops about a geometry shape and a math equasion and how that equates to how life works. That the very big and the very small are connected and working on these same basic beautiful mathematical laws, in us and in the universe. That the universe ticks over perfectly, and beautifully, and some places chaotically, and yet seeming chaos is not. The five petals of a flower that match the seedpod of an apple and is a prime number, equasions that describe the growth of plants: fractals, the swirl of a galaxy that matches a sea shell: the golden mean, the dynamics of an explosion, that wherever you are in the universe you are in the center because distance is always an equal time away from you: you cannot go to the "edge". How electrons and protons circle atomic nuclei, and that the forces that hold them there work so perfectly. I heard the other day that an atomic nucleus is a mini black hole, holding enough energy to suck things into it, yet enough repellant force that they don't fall in. That the human body is made up of these tiny universes, and that they all work in harmony to create ... us!

It's hard to explain. The beauty of math and physics I guess. The meaning within numbers. ANd the fact that I don't have much education on these topics doesn't seem to diminish my awe, though oh boy, would I like to join the church of the Physics community and immerse myself in those mystical and enigmatic symbols, equasions, thoughts and discoveries. "The science of what is", they call it. I would be just like Tyson DeGrasse, wanting to grab people in the street in my awe.

It could be poorly prepared fertilizer, or maybe you just spread it too thick.

Could it have anything to do with turkeys?

Or maybe because it was just a matter of chance? ("Why can’t the smartest people on the entire planet – working together for what – over 150 yrs since Darwin now – make one life form, which they claim happened by chance?")

they can be nifty, can't they? :3  that's part of my spirituality, when i'm feeling connected to universe i can notice all these synchronicities...

some people have actually tried to come up with empirical ways of studying coincidences.

wikipedia has a neat place to start

good to hear from you, waterfall :3

9 months of constant contact certainly is a long time to get to know someone intimately

:3

have you ever swam with one?

you are a constant gem, Arminius :3

I hope to be able somehow to hear your sermon :3

Thank you for being the lovable spiritual hermit that you are and never stop :3

What a poetic soul you have there :3

You're bursting at the seams there :3

No, I haven't.  Had the opportunity during a trip to Silver Bank a few years ago, but decided against it.  Somehow felt it was an intrusion of their domain.

I've been close enough to touch, though.....:-D