A New Cosmological Model

The discovery of a galactic merger of 14 galaxies is causing me to rethink the Big Bang model of the universe.  Galactic mergers like this, in theory, aren't supposed to merge so early in the universe's history.  It's making me wonder if we might actually be looking into a whole different universe, or the far distant future of our own.  Traditionally it's thought that the farther we look, the farther into the past we can see, and the closer to the Big Bang we get.  This groundbreaking observation would seemingly dispel that myth, because mergers this size aren't mathematically possible with the current cosmological models. 

In the scenario that we are looking into the future, either the arrow of time has been reversed at some point on the visual horizon, or we're looking so far into the curvature of space-time that we've come "half-circle" to the other side of the resultant sphere.  The latter actually makes the most sense to me.  It's making me think the map of the universe might already be set in stone, i.e., not always expanding, but simply recycling itself on the surface of what we'd think of as a 3-dimensional sphere (literally 4-d in space-time).  The "sphere" would collapse and expand with regularity, and we're able to see into its future because the added dimension of time allows us to see light at different intervals of existence.  Essentially it means we haven't been looking "out" into the universe all this time, but "through" the sphere to other points in space-time, where the light on its surface can be seen.  This would also (perhaps alarmingly) imply there was no Big Bang, because we haven't seen it yet through this cycle.  It would imply the universe is simply contracting and expanding- not contracting all the way, as it would in a Big Bang; maybe it can't do that.  

For the record, I highly doubt this is the discovery of another universe.  I'm more open to a theory that would keep the Big Bang in context and allow these super-galactic mergers to happen so early in time.  It just doesn't make any sense to think that way at this point.  I'd also be interested in the idea of dark matter being the space inside this hypothetical space-time sphere.  When the universe is "old", there's more dark matter because the volume of the sphere is larger (and less when younger). 

 

The Gods of Thailand

Happy gathering, happy feast, 
Givers of plenty, giving freely, giving joyfully, 
Celebrating a reunion of family, a flowering 
Generation, a stampede of boys and Americans 
Eating all they can while the glass plate turns. 
Everyone has their own station, receiving 
What was left by others on a wheel of compassion,  

Divine merits that erode the western  

Stone, built out of duty to some 
Forgotten practice.  Smiles and laughter 
Drown out the despair of otherwise modern 
City derailments; the poverty, the monotony, 
The traffic of Business- our grand Napoleon- 
All awash in the glow of a carefree philosophy 
That champions love over commerce, 
Luxury over time, faith over certainty. 
 
In Thailand, the Gods are remembered. 
They protect their people from hostile forces, 
Who were never embittered by colonialism, 
Who were immune to the doctrines of labor, 
Who meditated so well on their teachings 
That they were never forsaken to foreign 
Elements, despite their great city being 
Modeled on systematic edicts.  A less adaptable  

Civilization would have crumbled 
Under the weight of the west, like the many 
Disenchanted scarecrows dangling in the wind. 

Honeybear House

 One day we'll have a nice little house, deep in the valley of a frosty pine wood, where angels will dress the roofs with snow, their wings churning the clouds of a frozen sky.  It will be nestled in the mountains far away from the city, like a bear hibernating in a den made of honey.  We'll name it after him, we'll live like he does, solitary and warm in the hostile wild, where nothing will bother us except for the howling wind.  The seasons will shift ever so slightly, bringing rain and sun and fog, cycling through a wheel of orbit until the snow comes back again. 

The chimney will breathe a hearty smoke, as if the house were alive, protecting us from everything outside.  Every nook and cranny will be taken care of in return by our tidy hands, making sure the dust and clutter doesn't get too much.  That way the children will be able to play anywhere and make more messes for us to clean.  Their laughter will make music course through the halls, echoing like the fairy queens in an opera by Mozart.  The brick will be strong, the garden resilient.  We'll clean and cook and scent all the rooms with lavender and mint, a bouquet of soapy candles standing on altars of bliss.  

Our house will have a hearth with a log always burning.  On the coldest nights we'll sleep on the floor while the wood burns to ash as the hours go by.  As the embers fade our dreams will course through the ether, to realms inhabited by memories where the city had painted our souls with a scandalous brush.  The children won't know about them, this being their home, though sometimes you'll think it might be better for them if they could go to school and play with other kids back in the city.  And I'll say no, reminding you of how great it is here in our honeybear house, where everything we need is right in front of us, especially love, the most important one. 

You'll have a kitchen to make whatever your heart desires; a sturdy brick oven to bake cookies in; a roasting pit to cook what I've captured; a cauldron in the corner for making stew; an iron grill to make pancakes on- steaks, sir fry and salmon for special nights.  Everything will be in its right place.  You'll have a deep fryer for making chicken and fries; porcelain bowls for keeping pasta and salad in; a blender for your smoothies, the fruit coming in freshly grown off the orchard trees; an ice box for keeping ice cream; a refrigerator for keeping the garden vegetables fresh; a honey pot in the shape of a bear, not unlike Pooh of the Hundred-Acre-Wood, which will always remind you of ours when we read about it to our children before sleep; an array of pots and pans, tongs and other silver utensils hanging from the ceiling.  It will be a complete kitchen, something neither of us thought we'd ever have when living alone. 

We'll have an office with a fine mahogany desk, surrounded by a cylinder wall of leather-bound books.  It will have a reading sofa where we can read anything we've picked off the shelves.  This will also serve as our library, a temple of knowledge adrift on the sails of time.  We'll hang all the puzzles we've made in a special gallery, where you'll paint beautiful sunsets from our view of the valley.  Here you'll make more journals for me to write in, so that each of the years we spend together may be set in writings like this for our children to read, and our grandchildren, perhaps even a novelist seeking a happy conclusion to an otherwise strange family drama.  We'll waste away the years here; the seasons will pass slowly, for we will savor them all and not be stressed by the burdens of civilization. 

Our bed will have pillows filled with the softest feathers, and a blanket so white you'll mistake it for the snow outside.  We'll spend the most time here, snuggling together, bound to each other as two pods in a peanut.  Here we'll sleep our long peaceful nights, as owls hoot and coyotes howl, the strange sounds of the wild unsettling you at first.  But you'll get used to it, you always do.  You can get used to anything, even my lapses, for which I am forever grateful.  You're the best wife a man can have.  You deserve the best house, a honeybear house, built on the stuff that dreams unravel, constructed from materials that love has woven, passed on through the centuries in stories after the fold, erupted from a volcano that mortals explode into myth.