a lovely aching in my heart. a longing that never seems to abate.
last night, as one of my closest friends and I sat in my backyard under the twinkling stars, whose radiant beauty still hasn’t been swallowed whole by the curtain of modern light pollution — still there to be appreciated, though without a doubt with ever more splendor to be discovered elsewhere for those who may seek, and I may be one of those people —
I thought to myself something that stirred, and has before stirred, something like a panic, a jolt of awakening, a jolt of “just what in the fuck have we been doing, this is deeply, deeply wrong” —
I thought of the immense tragedy of modern living estranging us from the heavens.
Stargazing, stargazing, stargazing, it is not done enough, it is not done enough. How quickly does human pride vanish without a trace when reclined in a patch of grass, eyes trained upon the celestial.
How quickly does the insanity get wiped clean.
How quickly does the incessant chatter within the skull, the ping pong ball bouncing within that defies Newton’s second law, somehow gathering momentum without being acted on by an outside force, come to a standstill,
when confronted with the majesty of the universe.
There is a song that goes, “when you feel life coming down on you like a heavy weight… take a stroll to the nearest waters and remember your place.”
Last night, my buddy told me that, when he was a kid, he thought the night-sky was the ocean, and the stars were buoyant pins of light floating atop.
Yes, staring upon that grand sea that is our sky immediately reminds me of my infinitesimal place in the cosmic web. I’d love to sit upon the seashore ever more. Ah, in this pursuit for truth of mine, how can I ignore what it is that the starry night sky declares? That, there, is truth. It is the nexus point of awe and humility.
So, last night, as I sat there, I was taken by a fear. A fear, a fear, a fear, for FUCK, we have been sleepwalking. It isn’t right, it isn’t right, it isn’t right that we should be so disconnected from the immense majesty of the natural world! It simply isn’t right! I cannot bear the fact that it has become normal for us to fall asleep to twinkling pixels in our face and not twinkling stars.
This is my re-commitment to a life in pursuit of awe, of adoring the miracle of creation. Long ago were we wed, though perhaps I’ve not been as faithful as I could. So here am I renewing my vows:
Oh natural world, you have my heart, and I cannot wait to sing my praises.
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 