It is a precious time of year, when the heat remains for an encore but the punishing humidity and bloodsucking insects of high summer have been forced into the depths of the forest by the calm winds of early autumn.
The trees have begun to show their fall colours, and shadows have grown eerily long with the approach of the equinox. Going along the winding, dusty road where traffic rarely flows, I like to lazily stab puffballs with found sticks and watch the spores scatter.
There's a small bridge that was once painted red, but it rotted and was consumed by the burgeoning moss. Beneath the bridge there lies a creek bed that glimmers with pyrite at the bottom of a ravine thick with trees, where rounded boulders left by glacial movement eons ago stand firm on the slope like sentinels of the wild.
In shield country, the roads of men give way to the lakes and rivers that define the landscape. In shield country, it is possible to travel vast distances in any direction over water. There is as much lake as there is land. It kindles a sense of adventure to hop in a canoe and paddle as far as possible before the daylight gives way to dusk and the sky glows cerulean like the dying flame of a gas lamp. It's a race to make it back to shore before it gets swallowed by the dark.
After the sun sets, I would go lie down in the grass of the clearing and stare upwards. The silhouettes of trees serve as a frame for what lies beyond them, up there. The sky, unfiltered by the lights of the distant city, reveals a humbling sight.
I can see the light of so many stars that it is difficult to find the black between them. These stars are to the sky what grains of sand are to a beach that stretches on without bounds, like a cosmic network forged across the timeless void. The Milky Way cuts across them, like a river flowing through the wilderness of space.
The I that is me leaves my body and submerges into the cool granite of this ancient land mass. All that is left above the surface is a brain connected to eyeballs that somehow evolved to perceive a sight so immense that it defies human understanding. Seeing this sky, I can understand why people believed it to be the domain of God. It speaks to me in a beautiful language I cannot understand. All I can know is that I am stardust graced by the fleeting spark of life. I am in awe. I am grateful.
The trees have begun to show their fall colours, and shadows have grown eerily long with the approach of the equinox. Going along the winding, dusty road where traffic rarely flows, I like to lazily stab puffballs with found sticks and watch the spores scatter.
There's a small bridge that was once painted red, but it rotted and was consumed by the burgeoning moss. Beneath the bridge there lies a creek bed that glimmers with pyrite at the bottom of a ravine thick with trees, where rounded boulders left by glacial movement eons ago stand firm on the slope like sentinels of the wild.
In shield country, the roads of men give way to the lakes and rivers that define the landscape. In shield country, it is possible to travel vast distances in any direction over water. There is as much lake as there is land. It kindles a sense of adventure to hop in a canoe and paddle as far as possible before the daylight gives way to dusk and the sky glows cerulean like the dying flame of a gas lamp. It's a race to make it back to shore before it gets swallowed by the dark.
After the sun sets, I would go lie down in the grass of the clearing and stare upwards. The silhouettes of trees serve as a frame for what lies beyond them, up there. The sky, unfiltered by the lights of the distant city, reveals a humbling sight.
I can see the light of so many stars that it is difficult to find the black between them. These stars are to the sky what grains of sand are to a beach that stretches on without bounds, like a cosmic network forged across the timeless void. The Milky Way cuts across them, like a river flowing through the wilderness of space.
The I that is me leaves my body and submerges into the cool granite of this ancient land mass. All that is left above the surface is a brain connected to eyeballs that somehow evolved to perceive a sight so immense that it defies human understanding. Seeing this sky, I can understand why people believed it to be the domain of God. It speaks to me in a beautiful language I cannot understand. All I can know is that I am stardust graced by the fleeting spark of life. I am in awe. I am grateful.
just trying to capture... a feeling...