Going to the Moon

There has been much in the news about the 40th anniversary of man's visits to the moon.
Surely no one can fail to see the significance of mankind travelling to and returning from an other celestial body. We are the only sentient life form to have done this (so far as we know). The fact that it was done apparently with less computing power than I have here now to write this and probably less than most mobile phones have now, makes it all the more amazing. Our kind got off the planet, travelled to the moon, strolled around a bit and came home! And this says something about what we are. We are the kind that expands its capability, its know how, its experience. Trisna (see tanha from post on Vitality) certainly seems to lead us to some amazing creations. And I think that points to some interesting aspects of what it means to be human. Much of the desire to get to the moon was connected with the cold war but even behind that, as a species we had the desire to go there, it's the sort of thing we do, like exploring the earth we want to explore the heavens. Interestingly we want to explore the 'heavens' of both the material and mystical worlds. The former about leaving 'home' and the later returning. But I digress, or do I? What I am driving at is that vexed issue so often pondered; how do we cope with being such driven creatures and how is one to evaluate the outcome of our efforts?

I've heard myself say more than once, 'we went to the moon; it's in our nature' when talking about desire in the context of spirituality. Even though poking into things and taking control with our (Western?) scientific mind seems to reduce the poetic view I wonder if we shift our view point a little to look at the wonder of our endeavours if the poetic does not reappear. The moon, which is often used in spiritual imagery, might not appear quite so charismatic, so yin, so poetic for knowing that it came to be at least in part within our reach, yet in considering when in better frame of mind than Hamlet 'what a piece of work man is', do we not once more return to the poetic? We are amazing, complex, contradictory creatures. I take exception to the view expressed in Western religious frameworks which places man above the animals and created in God's image etc. (that whole set of values is, I think tied up in the above quote) but that we are able to be so creative and also able to contemplate getting beyond our own ego is surely a measure of what we are. We have this ego and we need it to get across the road and even go to the moon and it keeps us from our spiritual 'home' yet we can somehow still see 'home' and realise the challenge of living in the realm of form, the material world as physically incarnated beings whilst contemplating our (true) nature. We see the moon in more ways than one.