I’ve come to know my place in the universe. From the day I rejected the doctrines of childhood at age 18, ’til I experienced the unimpeachable answer to that question, I spent decades searching.

Note, that I say “experienced.” My story is not about learning a belief system taught by others. The experience that changed me happened while reading at my desk. In a moment, the search ended, but those years of searching were essential because the searching prepared me to fully understand the shocking power and wonder of what I’d just read.

I’m not sure it would have impacted me that way, had I not been a fan of science, searched the world’s religions, studied Zen for a short while in a monastery, dropped acid, and looked always, even in mirrors, for the answer to “who am I?”

Then I read, what is today a simple, universally accepted fact, stars create matter. Einstein’s equation: E=MC squared.  Suddenly, everything came together into an unforeseen, all embracing One-ness.  That was about 45 years ago. The impact of the experience has never weakened or faltered.

What did I learn? That my matter, atoms and molecules, were created in a star that exploded, casting everything it made into space.  Maybe many stars, many eons ago, took part in that cosmic seeding. It means I was out there once in the form of my little bits. So were we all.  I find that terribly exciting.  To know it means that we are a little bit of the universe aware of itself.

Eventually, gravity whirled all the little bits into a vast togetherness that formed a cosmic cloud, which produced our Sun and its planets. Then Earth produced life out of its soil and water and air. I am one of those living critters and  we’ve all emerged from Earth’s soil.

And that tells me the human spirit comes from the soil, the rocks, the air, the water.  We emerged from all that, all of us.  The planet is where I came from.  And because I’m related to all the other life on Earth, I have a responsibility to care for it.  That’s my purpose.

I know the other arguments and beliefs about our source. In fact, there are many and they all have many believers.I’ve no argument with any of those other narratives. If they resolve a searcher’s needs, they have value.

I must say, though, that as a child of nature, I do not support the idea of the “supernatural.” Not one bit of testable evidence for the existence of a supernatural has ever been offered in all of human history. No testable evidence. Never.

My search has ended. I am content and willing to own all that I am, whether mistakes or faults, as well as my values, the most of important of which is the Golden Rule.

By the way, I see a validation for my cosmic experience in the ancient wisdom of our language. Words like human, humane, humus, humor, humanity, humble, or humanist suggest to me that we’ve known all along who we are.