The Past meets the Present

It's late at night. It's cold and the stars are shining high above me. I have found myself a hilltop deep in the woods, far away from the settlement. There is no light pollution here, I can see into the realms of the Gods. I light up a fire so I can keep myself warm, and hang my coffee pot on a stick above the flames. The smell of the fatwood mixed with the freshly made coffee is spreading around the camp. It always has a relaxing effect on me. I sense the wellbeing all around me. It’s almost as if time stands still. It is so wonderful to slow down after a stressful day at work, and to have left all the house chores behind. The smells make me feel fresh and the sounds make me vigilant. I am so alive here. So unlike how I feel after hours on the couch at home in front of the narcotic television shows.

Alone in the great void, great thoughts can take place, right here is the truth to be found. Above me is the night black, and when the Sun is gone, it gives me the opportunity to look far back in time. I see all the stars, and Jupiter reigns over the night sky again. The big and shiny giant is the ruler of darkness. I think about his role to protect us from being crushed by asteroids. I think about how this powerful ball can make me feel so small, yet so safe and so taken care of, as if I were a little baby. The gas giant is like a loving father whose main mission in life is to protect his children. With his strong belt of many moons, he holds the Universe together.

Time.

Can we humans really comprehend what time is? Milky Way winds like a snake over the night sky. The Earth spins around herself somewhere in the body of the snake. I am a part of that snake, and I meander around the pupil in the center of the Universe. What is the snake keeping? I am never coming back to where I started. And all revolutions the Earth has done have created invisible veils of time, and that seems impossible to penetrate. Yet I know that when I look at the stars far up there, way out there, it is not the present moment I see. I look far into the past, many light years backwards in time.

When the stars reach my eyes, the past meets the present.

Filidh Lochlannach
hege_fossum@hotmail.com