The Night Sky Changed Something in Me
Sometimes the deepest questions arrive when we finally stop looking down.
Welcome to Monday’s reflection.
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Now, on to today’s reflection.
I had just moved to a small village in the countryside and was taking the dog out for our first evening walk.
It had been a long day. Boxes had been carried in and unpacked, furniture shuffled into place, and endless little jobs completed. By the time I finally clipped the lead onto the dog and headed out, darkness had already fallen.
As we followed an unfamiliar path away from the village, I became aware of something I had not experienced for a very long time.
It was dark.
Not just a little dark, but properly dark. Away from the glow of streetlights and shop windows, I could barely make out what lay ahead of me. Then I looked up.
For a few seconds, I simply stood still.
The sky was full of stars.
Hundreds of them. Perhaps thousands. Tiny points of light scattered across the darkness. Some seemed bright and sharp. Others faint and distant. There were colours I had never really noticed before, and the occasional flashing light of an aircraft making its way across the night.
I felt strangely small.
The odd thing was that none of this was new. The stars had always been there. The universe had not suddenly appeared because I had moved house. Yet somehow, standing there beneath that sky, it felt as though I was seeing it properly for the first time.
