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How far can you see?


How far you can see depends on a number of things but the most important thing is light. Turns out, given the right circumstances, you can see light years away! If you are looking over the rim of the Grand Canyon down to the bottom and see campers there, that's a mile. You can see something a mile away. Flying in a plane and seeing the ground below? That's about six miles.

Looking up at the moon? Now you're seeing 239,000 miles and you can see detail -- valleys, land formations. Pretty cool, huh? Probably farther than you thought at first. But wait, because of course you can easily see the sun on a clear day, and that's 93 million miles away. Ninety-three million miles and you can see it easily. In fact, it's so bright that you should not look directly at it for more than a moment. And, still, that's not the limit. Planets, stars, even a galaxy that's 2.5 million light years away: all are visible to the unassisted human eye. Given that a light year is the distance a beam of light travels in a year (5.88 trillion-with-a-T miles), times 2.5 million, that's an unimaginable distance. But you can see it.

But remember, as remarkable as your sight is, the important thing is light. You need light, either reflecting back at you or emanating from a source, to see. And here's where I love the connection between science, spirit and the way we use words -- because just as you see with your eyes, you also see with your heart and your mind. In fact, you can see with your heart and mind even if your eyes are closed or not working normally.

Still, to see better, to see more deeply, you need light. So use the light within you to see the world around you, the world up close, the ones you love, the ones you think you do not love. Use the light within you to see beyond the world up close -- to see the future or to see far back into the past. Look with the light that emanates from you, to your ancestors, to your descendants, to what is possible and what is true. Shine your light so that others can see you and you can see them.

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