In 1543, Copernicus published this book and changed everything:

De Revolutionisis Orbi

Before he did that, the Earth was considered the centre of the universe. After he was done, the sun was considered the centre of the solar system, and the stars, well, they were out there.

Copernicus, the Priest Who Started the Scientific Revolution

His model of the solar system looked like this:

It is an elaboration of the medieval image the poet Dante made of the universe in 1320 — a change of perspective but not much else…

In turn, that image goes back to the Greek tragedies, which were stages to represent the zodiacal codes of the Art of Memory, which eventually was codified like this:

Giordano Bruno’s Memory Map

A Solar System, or a sun, by a different name.

Such maps were incorporated into theatre in the Elizabethan age. Shakespeare’s theatres were built on the model of such maps. His plays place consciousness in the middle of them. Kind of like an updated Dante. Here’s Dante:

Dante and Virgil Looking Up to the Heavens

Dante’s world was a stage. (I think ours is too.)

We stand on the threshold of a similar revolution, or extension of old patterns, should we wish to take it. Today, I’d like to suggest that the earth is a planet with many suns, not just one. Here are two.

Two Suns at Dusk in November

One fuses hydrogen into Helium. Its particles take 100,000 years to get from the core to the surface, and then a few minutes to get to the earth, where they reform the sun in many shapes, which are very slow and bind sun, water and earth into complex organic, self-replicating patterns. The other, this sunflower, one of those patterns, carries particles of that sun through the winter into the spring, for the reaction to continue on earth again.

Meanwhile, deep within the Copernican version of events, humans eventually started doing this:

Torturing the Last of the White Sturgeon in the Columbia River

Four hours to haul it up out of the radioactive sludge, then you let it go and see if you can do it again. These most ancient fish have mouths full of hooks from previous torture events. This is called sport. yes, That’s 2 of 9 weapons grade plutonium reactors watching. The Cold War was largely conducted here. It still is.

We are inside the reaction. It completes itself when it strikes matter. You could say, we are inside the sun. Everything we see and touch, and every way in which we think, are the result of the imaging of the sun in the material of the earth. Copernicus was only presenting a perspective based on the traditions and knowledge of his time. It has evolved into a powerful scientific and engineering tradition. It is only part of the story. The story has evolved. There are so many earths…

Choke Cherries in November Rain

There are so many suns …

Wild Grapes After the Birds Were By

There are whole worlds and technologies here, far more capable of healing us and the earth than the Copernican one.