An ever turning wheel of becoming.

Light bends, falls inward—

dark hunger tears the void,

a silent mouth devours.

A star begins not with purpose, but with gravity.

A gathering of dust and gas drawn inward until pressure ignites fusion in its core. It burns, not out of will, but because it must. Energy radiates outward, balancing the inward pull of gravity: a fragile, temporary harmony, sustained for billions of years.

In that light, there's no meaning, yet we find it there. The photons stream outward, illuminating planters, reaching for us, stirring the molecules of life, settling the stage for consciousness to arise. Consciousness that will, one day, turn its gaze back to the sky and wonder at its origins. It's as if the star, blind and indifferent, unknowingly gives birth to the eyes that will see it, that will witness it, the minds that will contemplate it. The recursive loop—matter becoming life, life reflecting on matter—is the quiet miracle of the cosmos.

But the star, for all its brilliance, is finite. Its fuel depletes, and gravity, the relentless sculptor, resumes its own collapse. The core contracts, densities rise beyond comprehension, and at last, the star collapses into a singularity. A point, where the known laws of physics shatter, where purpose and space itself are consumed.

Here, in the heart of the black hole, our models break down. We speak of event horizons, of gravitational singularities, but these are placeholders for our own ignorance. The star that once radiated light now becomes an absence, an object defined by what it prevents. Nothing escapes.

Yet even this annihilation is generative. The star's death seeds heavier elements across the cosmos, new stars and planets to form. The black hole, the absence itself, shapes galaxies, a gravitational anchor.

Destruction? Yes.

But also creation.

There's a lesson in this cycle. The universe is not moral, not intentional.

It simply is.

And yet, within this indifferent unfolding, we impose narrative, we weave stories. We look at the stars and speak of beauty, love, transcendence. We contemplate black holes and find metaphors for loss, for death, for the limits of knowledge. We assign meaning where there is none inherently.

Because we are beings who must—just the star burn because it must, we must seek meaning, even in the void.

This is the paradox: the universe is cold, but we feel warmth. It's indifferent, but we care. And in the act of caring, in the search of understanding, we transform the universe from a collection of blind processes into something more. A story we tell ourselves, a mirror for our longing, a canvas for wonder. The star collapses, the black hole forms, and in the void we find both an end and beginning. An abyss that devours, yet also a womb.

And perhaps this is the true shape of the cosmos. Not static laws, not fixed meanings, but an ever-turning wheel of becoming, where every collapse is also a seed, every ending an unseen becoming.

Dust stirs in the dark,

gravity sings, stars awaken—

light escapes the void.

#beginsandends