For Small Creatures Such as We

For Small Creatures Such as We Plot Summary

Introduction

I stood in the museum of natural history as a child, staring at the dioramas of frozen animals with a mix of awe and fear. "That one just moved!" I would exclaim to my father, who patiently explained that they couldn't move because they were no longer alive. This early encounter with mortality sparked questions that would follow me throughout life. What does it mean to be alive? How do we make sense of our brief existence in this vast universe? As we navigate our lives between birth and death, we humans have always created rituals to mark time, celebrate transitions, and find meaning. Whether religious or secular, these practices help us process change and connect with something larger than ourselves. Science reveals that we are made of star stuff, tiny beings on a small planet orbiting an ordinary star in an immense cosmos. This perspective doesn't diminish our experience but enriches it. The miracle isn't that some divine force created us, but that against astronomical odds, we exist at all. Our rituals need not rely on supernatural belief to be profound. By understanding the astronomical and biological foundations of our celebrations, we can find deep meaning in a scientific worldview and create traditions that honor what is most sacred in our lives: connection, wonder, and love.

Chapter 1: The Cosmic Dance: Cycles of Nature and Human Celebration

Our planet Earth has a tilt of about 23.4 degrees, creating the changing seasons that have shaped human experience throughout history. This axial tilt is the reason we have winter and summer, spring and autumn. If not for this tilt, we'd still have weather, but no seasons, and the length of days would remain constant year-round. This cosmic dance—our planet's yearly journey around the sun—has profoundly influenced how we mark time and celebrate life's passages. When I was small, my mother and I would watch for the first dogwood blossoms outside our dining room window. We called this special day "Blossom Day," and would celebrate with something like a tea party when the first flowers appeared. It was a simple ritual, but it connected us to the changing seasons and the rebirth that comes with spring. My mother taught me that celebrations could be invented, that we could choose to honor what was most meaningful to us. Throughout human history, cultures worldwide have recognized similar astronomical events with rituals and celebrations. From winter solstice festivals marking the return of light to harvest celebrations honoring Earth's abundance, these traditions emerge from our deep connection to cosmic cycles. The winter solstice is celebrated across cultures—from Dongzhi in China to Yaldā in Iran to Christmas and Hanukkah in the West—all honoring the moment when darkness begins to recede and days grow longer. Summer solstice celebrations, too, appear across cultures, honoring the sun at its zenith. Ancient structures like Stonehenge in England, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, and countless others were built to mark these astronomical alignments. These weren't just practical calendars but sacred observatories connecting human communities to cosmic patterns. The cycles of the moon have similarly inspired ritual and celebration. Many religions build their calendars around lunar cycles, and the moon has been worshipped as divine across cultures. Even the word "month" shares its etymological roots with "moon." Though science has explained these celestial mechanics, understanding their cause doesn't diminish their beauty or significance. What these traditions reveal is something profound: beneath the specific stories, symbols, and dogmas of religion lies something universal—our human response to astronomical cycles and biological transitions. In creating rituals that honor these patterns, we find our place in the vastness, marking our brief moment in the grand cosmic dance with celebration, community, and wonder.

Chapter 2: Family Traditions: Carrying Forward the Sacred

When my grandfather Harry was a journalism student at New York University in the 1930s, he made a decision that would forever change our family's spiritual direction. Coming from a line of Orthodox Jews, he rode the train home to Queens one day, working up the courage to tell his father he would no longer keep kosher or attend synagogue. He didn't believe in God or the Torah's teachings. As he entered his home, he found his father Benjamin davening, wrapped in a tallis, lost in prayer. Harry revealed his decision, bracing himself for anger or disappointment. But instead, his devout father looked up and smiled, offering words that became our family mantra: "The only sin would be to pretend." Despite this marking the end of possibly thousands of years of religious observance, it reaffirmed a different element of Jewish tradition: questioning, philosophical debate, skepticism. Growing up, my family maintained selected Jewish traditions while approaching them through a secular, scientific lens. We celebrated Passover with a Seder, but emphasized the historical journey of our ancestors rather than divine intervention. When I asked my parents about the afterlife—comparing my Catholic nanny's belief in heaven with their view that death was like dreamless sleep—they responded enthusiastically with: "Nobody knows!" They taught me there was no shame in uncertainty. When Jon and I married, we incorporated elements from different traditions into our ceremony. We stood under a chuppah, the Jewish wedding canopy, lit a unity candle from Christian tradition, and included a retelling of Aristophanes' myth about love from Plato's Symposium. None of these required literal belief to be meaningful. They represented values and aspirations we held dear. Family traditions evolve across generations, changing to reflect new understandings while maintaining connections to the past. In our home, the encyclopedia and scientific reference books became our sacred texts. When I asked questions about the world, my father would retrieve the Encyclopædia Britannica and together we would look up answers, reveling in shared discovery. These moments of connection and wonder became our family ritual. Now with a daughter of my own, I face the question of what traditions to pass on. We celebrate solstices and equinoxes, marking Earth's journey around the sun. We light Hanukkah candles to honor my ancestry. We talk about the astronomical realities behind seasonal changes. But more than specific rituals, I want to impart what my parents gave me: a sense of wonder at the natural world, intellectual curiosity, and the understanding that not knowing is the beginning of discovery. For what are family traditions but bridges between generations, carrying forward not just customs but values, worldviews, and ways of being? Whether religious or secular, these rituals connect us to something larger than ourselves—to history, to community, to the cosmos itself—creating meaning amid the brevity of our existence.

Chapter 3: Life Transitions: Rituals of Birth, Growth, and Death

The day my daughter Helena was born stands as the most profound transition of my life. After a difficult labor that ended in an emergency C-section, I lay on the operating table, dizzy and overwhelmed. As they placed her in my arms, I noticed her oddly shaped big toes—exactly like mine, which I inherited from my father. In that moment of meeting, I felt the magnificent continuity of life, how DNA carries forward traits across generations like secret messages. Human cultures worldwide have created rituals to mark life's major transitions. Birth, coming of age, marriage, and death are biological realities that we imbue with social and spiritual significance. Among Hindus and Muslims, a baby's first taste should be sweet—a drop of honey or piece of fruit—and sacred words the first sound they hear. The Beng people of Côte d'Ivoire give newborns cowry shells, currency of their ancestors, symbolic tokens connecting them to past generations. Coming-of-age rituals similarly appear across cultures, from bar and bat mitzvahs to quinceañeras, from Maasai warrior initiations to Amish rumspringa. Though dressed differently by cultural norms, each celebrates the same biological transition from childhood to sexual maturity. In the Vanuatu islands, boys mark manhood by jumping from wooden towers with vines tied to their ankles—a literal leap into adulthood. After their first jump, their mothers destroy a favorite childhood toy, symbolizing the end of childhood. I experienced my own secular coming of age when, as a teenager, I took psychedelic mushrooms and confronted mortality in a profound way. The experience initially plunged me into existential despair—everything seemed meaningless against the backdrop of eventual extinction. But weeks later, a new perspective emerged: precisely because life is finite, each moment becomes precious. I began feeling joy in understanding our brief, unlikely existence. This shift in perspective felt like true adulthood. For death, too, we create rituals that help us process the unprocessable. When my father died, we read the mourner's kaddish at his grave, not because we believed its words but because we needed the gravity of tradition. Now when I visit the cemetery, I collect small stones to place on his headstone and those of other family members—a Jewish custom I observe faithfully despite my secular worldview. These transitions would happen with or without ceremony—babies would be born, children would mature, people would die. But rituals help us process change, moving us from one state to another with community support and shared meaning. They acknowledge the profound nature of these biological transitions while connecting us to generations who have experienced the same passages. Perhaps what makes these moments worthy of ritual is their universality—they transcend cultural differences to remind us of our shared humanity. Whether sacred or secular, our ceremonies recognize what is truly miraculous: not supernatural intervention but the astonishing gift of existence itself, with all its joy and heartbreak, in this vast cosmos where we briefly burn with consciousness.

Chapter 4: Community and Connection: Creating Secular Congregations

In 2010, feeling a deep longing for connection, I founded what I called the Ladies Dining Society. Each month, I invited a diverse group of women from different parts of my life to gather at a restaurant near Union Square in New York. Initially, only six people came. But over time, this simple dinner evolved into something profound—a secular congregation where meaningful bonds formed across backgrounds and experiences. Throughout human history, religious communities have provided structured opportunities for people to gather, connect, and support one another. For those without religious affiliation, this social infrastructure can be sorely missed. While we may not miss dogma or supernatural beliefs, many secular people deeply miss the community, ritual, and shared experiences that religious institutions provide. As our monthly dinners continued, I developed an almost religious devotion to the details—keeping meticulous records of attendees in a spreadsheet, maintaining consistent timing and format, even tracking what I wore to avoid repetition. The ritual aspects mattered. We would meet at 7:30 (though we rarely sat until 8:15), allowing for a cocktail hour as people arrived. We shared stories, discussed politics, relationships, and art. Over Dirty Janes (martinis with pickled green tomatoes), we built a chosen family. When I moved to Boston, I gave detailed instructions to a friend starting a West Coast chapter of the Ladies Dining Society. She listened carefully but eventually reported back that their version had evolved differently—they met on Sundays instead of weeknights, didn't focus on cocktails, and had no photo booth. At first, I felt possessive of "my" tradition, but I came to appreciate that rituals must adapt to survive. Like religious denominations that split and evolve, our secular ritual was finding new expressions. This need for congregation appears in many secular forms. Book clubs, volunteer organizations, sports leagues, and political activism groups all provide the connection once monopolized by religious institutions. Sunday Assembly, founded in London in 2013 as an "atheist church," offers the community and ritual of religious services without supernatural belief. Ethical Culture societies and Unitarian Universalist congregations similarly provide gathering spaces for those seeking community without traditional religion. Daniel Dennett wrote in "Breaking the Spell" that "In the face of inevitable wear and tear, no designed thing persists for long without renewal and replication." The institutions and habits of human culture require adaptation to survive. Religious or secular, our communities must evolve while maintaining their essential function: connecting us to something larger than ourselves. Perhaps what we seek in congregation isn't divine blessing but human connection—the profound recognition that we are not alone in our brief journey through existence. In creating secular communities, we acknowledge that meaning isn't bestowed from above but created between us, in the sacred space of human relationship and shared experience.

Chapter 5: Science as Sacred: Wonder in the Provable Universe

When I was small, my father would take me to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. The vast halls with their preserved specimens and planetary exhibits were, for me, a holy place—grand and full of answers to deep and ancient questions. It filled me with awe, though I was sometimes frightened by the taxidermied animals that my imagination insisted were moving. "They can't move," my father would gently explain, "because they're dead." These early museum visits introduced me to a world of giddy enthusiasm about the fact that the universe is bigger than we can comprehend, that we live on a planet perfectly adapted for us, and that our understanding grows deeper and more astonishing with time. I was taught that this all happened by chance—and that this chance occurrence was worthy of celebration and wonder. My parents instilled in me that nature as revealed by science was a source of great, stirring pleasure. Logic, evidence, and proof did not detract from the transcendent—quite the opposite. They were the source of its magnificence. Science wasn't presented as cold facts but as a pathway to astonishment. Learning that we are made of star stuff, that we share DNA with all living things, that our existence required billions of years of cosmic evolution—these scientific truths were offered as a kind of secular scripture, no less profound than creation myths. Consider the miracle of photosynthesis—plants transform sunlight into energy that sustains nearly all life on Earth. Or the extraordinary unlikelihood of your own birth—the countless chance meetings and survival stories of your ancestors stretching back to the first humans and beyond. These scientifically explainable phenomena don't become less wondrous when understood; they become more so. The neurotransmitters released when we fall in love, the dance of subatomic particles, the immense cosmic web of galaxies—science reveals these realities, but understanding their mechanisms doesn't diminish their beauty. As my father often said, "Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality." There's a modern tendency to separate the rational from the transcendent, as if understanding how something works robs it of its magic. When we say antibacterial gel protects us from illness, we don't consider it magical, though to earlier humans it would seem so. Why does provability rob us of wonder? The coffee that wakes us, the music that moves us, the light of distant stars reaching our eyes—all can be explained scientifically and still touch us profoundly. Perhaps the most sacred aspect of scientific understanding is its humility—its willingness to say "I don't know" and its openness to being wrong. As my father wrote, "Science demands a tolerance for ambiguity. Where we are ignorant, we withhold belief." This approach doesn't close off mystery but invites us deeper into it, allowing for continuous revelation as our understanding grows.

Chapter 6: Modern Rituals: Crafting Meaningful Ceremonies Today

Jon and I have several small daily rituals that might seem ordinary but hold deep meaning for us. Every morning, he wakes first, makes coffee, and brings me a cup in bed. I thank him and tell him how wonderful I think he is. This small act of romance sets the tone for our day and, in turn, our life together. Later, when he leaves his office, he texts me, "On the way!!!" which still gives me a little thrill. These rituals connect us to each other and to something larger—the ongoing story of our relationship. On our very first date, we had taken a taxi home from a baseball game. As we were saying goodnight, a melodic-accented driver suddenly began singing Janis Joplin songs to us. "Once a week, you must sing together," he advised. "Be playful and you will stay united." Since that night, Jon and I have sung the alphabet song together every weekend, almost always on Saturday morning, usually upon our first eye contact of the day. We sing it when we're crazy in love, when we're mad at each other, when we're rushing somewhere. When we're apart, we sing it over the phone. This might seem trivial compared to the elaborate ceremonies of organized religion, but it fulfills the same essential function—creating a regular reaffirmation of what matters most to us. The ritual connects us to each other, grounds us in the present moment, and reminds us of our values even when we're grouchy, busy, or annoyed. Even when we don't feel like it. Modern rituals needn't be limited to relationships. Many people create personal ceremonies to mark transitions or express gratitude. A friend takes her birthday as a day of solitude and reflection, hiking alone to consider the year past and the one ahead. Another plants trees on significant anniversaries. A colleague begins each workday with five minutes of meditation and intention-setting. A family I know celebrates the winter solstice by staying up all night, witnessing the longest darkness give way to returning light. What makes these modern rituals meaningful isn't their antiquity or religious foundation, but their authenticity—their ability to express what truly matters to the participants. When Jon and I were married, we created a ceremony that honored both our Jewish and Christian backgrounds while expressing our shared secular worldview. Under the Jewish wedding canopy, we lit a unity candle and included readings from multiple traditions. We incorporated something we loved from ancient Greek philosophy: Plato's myth that humans were once complete beings who were split apart, with love being the call back to our original form. There is power in creating your own rituals or adapting traditional ones to reflect your values. In fact, most religious traditions we now consider ancient were once innovations—Christmas trees, Hanukkah menorahs, and wedding rings all began as someone's new idea before becoming hallowed by time and repetition. Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of creating modern rituals is the freedom to craft ceremonies that truly reflect who we are and what we believe, unburdened by dogma yet enriched by human history. These personal practices connect us to something universal—the human need to mark time, honor transitions, express gratitude, and find meaning in our brief, extraordinary lives.

Chapter 7: Mortality and Memory: Finding Joy in Finitude

As I write these words, I am, like you, experiencing the brief moment between birth and death. Brief compared to what's on either side. For all we know, there was an infinite amount of time before we were born. And there will be, theoretically, an infinite amount of time after we're dead. Between those two enormous mysteries, if we're lucky, we get eighty or one hundred years—the blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. And yet, here we are. Right now. In the Capuchin Crypt in Rome, among rooms decorated with the skeletal remains of monks, there's a sign that reads: "What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be..." I was just shy of twenty when I saw this, and scarcely a day goes by that I don't think of it. This memento mori—remember you must die—isn't meant to depress but to awaken. By facing mortality directly, we can more fully appreciate the miracle of being alive at all. My father died when I was fourteen. One of the last things he said to me was "I'm sorry." For years, I couldn't understand why he apologized—he was the one dying, suffering. But he understood what I was too shocked to grasp: this would be the defining event of my life. Every other loss would reopen this wound. And the best moments of my life—any success, my wedding, holding my newborn—would be tarnished by his absence. Yet my parents taught me something profound: precisely because life isn't forever, it is beautiful. If we lived eternally, each moment would lose its preciousness. The finitude of existence makes it valuable. We appreciate sunlight because of darkness, spring because of winter, life because of death. This perspective doesn't eliminate grief but transforms it, allowing us to experience deep joy even while knowing everything ends. When my daughter was born, I felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude—for modern medicine that saved us both during a difficult delivery, for the genetic inheritance visible in her features, for the astonishing chance that brought her into being. I recognized in her tiny face echoes of my late grandfather Harry. She makes his expressions, his signature sigh. Science explains this as genetic inheritance, but understanding the mechanism doesn't make it less miraculous. In the months after Helena's birth, I read about microchimerism—how mothers and children exchange cells that become part of each other. Some of her cells may literally be part of me now, just as cells from my parents are part of me, and their parents before them. We are connected across generations not just metaphorically but physically, our brief lives overlapping in this cosmic moment. No matter what happens next, no matter if there is something beyond death or only dreamless sleep, the fact remains: we were here. We lived. We were part of the enormity. All the great and terrible parts of being alive—the shocking sublime beauty and heartbreak, the monotony, the interior thoughts, the shared pain and pleasure—really happened. On this little world that orbits a yellow star out in the great vastness of space and time. And that alone is cause for celebration.

Summary

Throughout human history, we have created rituals to mark time, celebrate transitions, and find meaning in our brief existence. From astronomical events like solstices to biological transitions like birth and death, these ceremonies help us process change and connect with something larger than ourselves. What's remarkable is how similar these practices are across cultures, regardless of specific beliefs. The winter solstice is celebrated worldwide not because of shared theology but because we all experience the same planet's journey around the sun. Science doesn't diminish these experiences but deepens them, revealing the astonishing processes that make life possible. Understanding that we evolved from earlier life forms, that our bodies contain elements forged in ancient stars, that against astronomical odds we exist at all—these scientific insights can fill us with even greater wonder than supernatural explanations. When we see ourselves as part of nature rather than separate from it, every moment becomes sacred. We don't need to believe in magic to experience the magic of reality. By creating rituals that reflect what we truly value—connection, wonder, gratitude—we can find profound meaning in a scientific worldview. Whether singing the alphabet with a loved one or marking the changing seasons, these practices remind us that in our brief moment between birth and death, we are part of something magnificent: the grand, continuing story of life in our vast and beautiful cosmos.

About Author

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Sasha Sagan

Alexandra Rachel "Sasha" Druyan Sagan (1982), is a native of Ithaca, New York and a graduate of NYU. She has worked as a writer, television producer, filmmaker, and editor in New York City, Boston and London. Her essays and interviews on death, history, travel and ritual through a scientific lens have appeared in New York Magazine, O. the Oprah Magazine, Literary Hub, Mashable.com and elsewhere. She is also a contributing editor for the British fashion magazine The Violet Book. She lives in Boston with her husband and daughter. For Small Creatures Such As We is her first book.

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