Moriarty said that in our century human beings have walked on the moon and like Neil Armstrong said it was a small step for man but a big step for mankind. Moriarty denies this. He says it was a very small step for humanity.

“To walk on the moon is no big deal…Have we walked on the moon because like Elvira Madigan we haven’t yet had the courage or the grace to step down and walk the sacred earth?

Moriarty says sometimes he stopped in at a house in Connemara where he lived in Ireland and saw children watching television. They were obsessed with other worlds that they saw. The characters in the films often had completely clean uniforms that didn’t smell of the barn or the heather or anything real. The children didn’t see the real wonder around them—Connemara. They were fed on ersatz wonder instead. Is that not even more true now in North America.  Children are obsessed with watching things on their phones or monitors. No one has time for real wonder any more. Pity that.

According to Professor Moriarty,

 “We need “to take a space journey to the earth…we would never want to set foot on Mars we would never want to set foot on any solar system inside or outside our galaxy.”

 

Is Moriarty right here?  Why does nature stop at earth? Is the moon not part of nature? How about Mars? How about the Milky way?

If you listen to astronauts speaking about their experiences in space it is far from prosaic. Maybe Moriarty was wrong on this point. I wish we could ask him, but that is too late. He is gone. He no longer walks the sacred earth with beauty. But we can. This is all part of releasing a new attitude to nature. That too is a sacred goal. That should be part of our religious quest in the modern age.