Cannibals, Glow-worms and the Night Sky
The sky is full of cannibals
In the South Island of New Zealand there is a tourist attraction called the Metro Caves. When I visited I enjoyed seeing many beautiful stalactites, and - sitting on an inflated tube, in a wetsuit - drifting gently on an underground stream under an immense array of glow-worms like blue-green stars on the roof of the cavern. The Metro caves claim that this is the largest collection of glow-worms in the Southern Hemisphere, and the starry points seem lovely, peaceful and mystical.
But, our guide dispelled this pleasant notion. She told us that the worms feed on insects which stray into the cave. There are hundreds of thousands of these animal worm-stars on the roof, but rather few lost and benighted insects, so when the glow-worms can’t get insects they eat each other! They are cannibals! We were gazing at a roof full of cannibals, and my memories of this delightful experience will never be quite the same again!
There is an unhappy parallel outside the cave anywhere in a clear night sky. The sky is like a carpet of billions of stars in the heavenly roof. How lovely! Poets write about the stars’ lovely shining and the peaceful feelings they give us; but did you know we are again looking at cannibals? All the stars have a crushingly strong gravity, and will swallow each other if they stray too close. The sky is full of cannibals! The greatest near cannibal is our Sun, with a gravity about 30 times as strong as Earth’s.
In the final heavenly kingdom which I look for, nothing will hurt or destroy – perhaps the poets have more ultimate right on their side than my tour guide.