Intrepid shooter Earl W. of Uptown House took this stunning photo of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The image is a two-photo composite, with the foreground taken at Split Rock State Park in April, the Milky Way July 3.

Earl used a Canon 6D Mark II, Tamron 15-30 F2.8 lens. The Milky Way was a 15 second exposure at f8, iso 3500; the foreground 30 seconds, iso 800 f10.

The immensity and beauty of our Milky Way galaxy reminds me of how small the Earth is and we humans that inhabit it. We are but a small cog in an infinite universe.

This truism reminds me of some wisdom an old friend from a Stillwater AA club once shared with me when I was new to sobriety and struggling mightily. He said there are two rules in life: One, don’t sweat the small stuff. Two, its mostly small stuff. I use that bit of wisdom to this day.

See you at a meeting! Meeting makers make it!