Bouncing off the moon

I have to pass this on . . .

From CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.):

The Barenaked Ladies, a children's choir, and the commander of the International Space Station. Put them together and what do you get? The first space-to-earth musical collaboration.
The song, "I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing) was commissioned by CBCMusic.ca and The Coalition for Music Education with the Canadian Space Agency to celebrate music education in schools across Canada.

The lyrics:

On solid fuel and wires
Turn the key and the light the fires.
We’re leaving Earth today
The rockets burning bright
We’ll soon be out of sight
And orbiting in space

Pushed back in my seat
Look out my window
There goes home
That ball of shiny blue houses everybody anybody ever knew 

So sing your song I’m listening out where stars are glistening
I can hear your voices bouncing off the moon
If you could see our nation from the international space station
You’d know why I want to get back soon (get back soon) 

Eighteen thousand miles an hour
Fueled by science and solar power
The oceans racing past
At half a thousand tons
Ninety minutes Moon to Sun
A bullet can’t go half this fast 

Floating from my seat
Look out my window
There goes Home (There goes home)
That brilliant ball of blue
Is where I’m from, and also where I’m going to 

So sing your song I’m listening out where stars are glistening
I can hear your voices bouncing off the moon
If you could see our nation from the international space station
You’d know why I want to get back soon (get back soon) 

All back and white just fades to grey
Where the sun rises sixteen times a day
You can’t make out borders from up here
Just a spinning ball within a tiny atmosphere (atmosphere) 

Pushed back in the seat
Look out my window
Here comes home (ho-ho-home)
What once was fueled by fear
Now has fifteen Nations orbiting together here. 

So sing your song I’m listening out where stars are glistening
I can hear your voices bouncing off the moon 

If you could see our nation from the international space station
You’d know why I want to get back soon (get back soon)
You’d know why I want to get back soon (getting back to you)
You’d know why I want to get back soon (getting back to you)
You’d know why I want to get back soon (getting back to you)
You’d know why I want to get back soon 

Source: LYBIO.net

Sometimes I get so discouraged, watching how we are so busy fouling our nest; carving out more roads for more unneeded merchandise, across irreplaceable wetlands, river banks, farmlands; hauling trainload after trainload of coal that will poison the air; laying leaky oil pipelines from the wasteland we have created on bird flyways, across still-green mountainsides to pristine waterways; heating and lighting ever larger houses for fewer people. And on and on, the list grows.

So I turn to the small, the close to home, the tiny beauties. There, I can forget, for a time. There, life goes on as always; there, I can make things better than I found them.

This video turns my eyes the opposite way, zooming out from the piles of gravel and clatter of heavy machinery, to see the earth from a different perspective.

"You can't make out borders from up here
Just a spinning ball within a tiny atmosphere."

We've got a long way to go, but this gives me hope. We can work together, we can learn to see beyond our noses. We can make things better, even the big things. Give us time!

A Skywatch post.