I keep a list of all content that has ever been used for Secular Solstice celebrations. It is very long and most of the things on it don’t fit the narrower thing you’re looking for here, but feel free to peruse it anyway.
I’m too tired / doing other things right now to make a case for everything on there that I think fits the bill, but here are a few:
Brief audio recording of Carl Sagan describing the primary concept of his book Pale blue dot : a vision of the human future in space. In reflecting on the image of the Earth as a tiny speak he notes “that’s us” that the Earth is “a mote of dust, suspended in a sun beam’ and a “very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.”
This but played over nice music (that I think was composed for the purpose).
A musical setting of Rudyard Kipling’s poem of the same name. The poem is about the double-sided coin of human agency and human fallibility. My favorite stanza:
We only in Creation (How much luckier the bridge and rail) Abide the twin damnation— To fail and know we fail. Yet we—by which sole token We know we once were Gods— Take shame in being broken However great the odds...
A choral setting of some Carl Sagan quotes. Pitch from the composer:
Mvt. 1 is about discovery (“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known”),
Mvt. 2 is about beauty (“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together).
Mvt. 3 is about space at large (“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”)
On a personal level, Carl Sagan has taught me how beautiful science and the universe can be, and that understanding something enriches the experience, but doesn’t take away from the mystery that draws us to the big questions of life. He taught me that the sciences are beautiful; the natural world is elegant; and for such small creatures as we, the vastness is bearable only through love :)
This song is about expanding moral circles of concern. I guess that’s more of an EA flavor (and it was written by an EA) but I don’t think that’s out of scope.
And here are some other ones I might come back and make a case for later (not hyperlinked because you said no bare links):
I keep a list of all content that has ever been used for Secular Solstice celebrations. It is very long and most of the things on it don’t fit the narrower thing you’re looking for here, but feel free to peruse it anyway.
I’m too tired / doing other things right now to make a case for everything on there that I think fits the bill, but here are a few:
Pale Blue Dot
Description I found somewhere else:
This but played over nice music (that I think was composed for the purpose).
Hymn to the Breaking Strain
A musical setting of Rudyard Kipling’s poem of the same name. The poem is about the double-sided coin of human agency and human fallibility. My favorite stanza:
Cosmos
A choral setting of some Carl Sagan quotes. Pitch from the composer:
The Circle
This song is about expanding moral circles of concern. I guess that’s more of an EA flavor (and it was written by an EA) but I don’t think that’s out of scope.
And here are some other ones I might come back and make a case for later (not hyperlinked because you said no bare links):
Sogno di Volare
Her Mysteries
Seikilos epitaph
Uplift
You Were Born
The Wheel
Time Wrote the Rocks
Do You Realize
Landsailor
The Next Right Thing
These look amazing, I’m excited to listen to it. Thanks for a great contribution!