The terrifying light of the sun streams the kind of energy
on which faith depends, varied and everywhere around us.
In the cries of the wind, the stuff of clouds, the drops of rain,
the logic of hot and cold, the elements and minerals—
all the minor or major themes of this island earth.
The detailed expressions I’ve been taught and more
since time began.
All my passionate loves, beauties, whimsies, driven
to a single point in the heavens.
Sunlight across the distance summers our otherwise cold dark orb,
awakens the blind, warms the angels—breath essential to life,
memory, dream, prayer, poetry, perfection—all this at once.

My friend is very kind to share his amazing photo of the sun. He used a special telescope that only shows light at a wavelength of 656.3 nanometers (e.g. the “hydrogen alpha”). The area covered is hundreds of thousands of square miles on the sun’s surface and shows a long magnetic filament that looks like a hockey stick in the center of the photo. According to NASA solar physicists, a filament appears darker from the top because the gas inside is cool compared to the hot photosphere below. When we see a filament in profile against a dark sky it looks like a giant glowing loop we’re familiar with—these are called prominences which can be spectacular.
The energy from the sun drives the familiar patterns on the surface of our world
including life.

The other neat thing is that both fission and fusion are at work in the sun. In the process hydrogen as super-heated plasma is converted to helium and other elements. Our sun will cease to exist as we know it when all its hydrogen has been consumed—in several billion years. I love the science, and the shine.

Stephen Cipot
Garden City Park