I like it that I can step into my back lots, look up, and see the stars. Maybe not as many as I might see at Big Bend Bend or the Guadalupe Mountains, but still stars in the night sky with the Milky Way clearly visible. Several weeks back, while doing so, I had this vision, this understanding about what it means to look and to see the stars.

I’d always thought of looking as this active thing I did, reaching out as it were with my eyes to gather in the sights. But then it occurred to me that seeing was passive, a gathering in of the light being sent my way. I was a vessel. As I looked, the light was falling into my eyes and all I had to do was be there. And what light wasn’t coming to my eyes was washing over me, falling on my skin and the ground around me. And then I understood what it meant to be bathed in starlight, and I felt sad that I wasn’t outside more often to see it finish it’s journey to earth.

But that’s easily remedied. I just go outside in the morning or the early evening and look up and see what the heavens are sending my way, and sometimes it’s a planet and sometimes it’s a star. And I wish I was better able to gather in the light and make a picture of where it started its journey. And then I think that one day in the far distant future someone else might look up and see the light of earth coming their way, and if they could focus in right down to the surface they might see me looking back.