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Night Magic It is a mesmerizing scene. From the floor of the flat desert, jagged mountains in the distance appear to have been drawn by cartoon artists. Sharp teeth ring the broad valley. But even when inspected through binoculars, they reveal no signs that other people have discovered them. There are no artificial lights, no buildings, not so much as a tiny wisp of smoke against the crystal blue sky. Nothing hints that humans ever wandered this dry shrub and cactus-strewn plain or the jagged peaks hiding this Arizona secret from those who imagine such places exist but never seek them out. Yet, most incredible is not what can be seen through the crisp, dry air of daytime, but rather the inspirational scene that slides magically into view as the last fingers of sunlight and a tiny sliver of the moon recede gracefully over the western horizon. Suddenly, a new brilliance. Bathing in the blue hue, a shiver tells me that even after all these years of living, I am seeing -- truly seeing -- starlight for the first time. Viewed from this lonely vantage point, the sky seems more dramatic and meaningful than were the crisp points of light and milky galaxies I marveled beneath as a boy in Wyoming. Here in this huge open amphitheater, starlight seems another form of daylight, exposing more than the physical world. The blaze of these ancient fires in the heavens is so luminescent that even lacking light from any other source, objects inside a desert tent are clearly seen. Its canvas walls glow, inducing me to dream of places thousands of millions of light years and billions of trillions of miles away, places where continuous nuclear fusion produced the miracle of this night long before humans walked our earth -- before there was an earth. Now, finally, the blaze has washed this desert with light. How could one see such things without pondering how we arrived on this tiny blue orb in the vast universe? Starlight is always there, of course, but is seldom viewed with such clarity. What a shame that artificial deadlines imposed by humans on themselves -- the artificial problems of our largely artificial society -- transform, over time, bright, open-minded babies into robotic adults. How sad that for so many people, dull work in the light of day is more important than quiet reflection in the brilliance of starlight. Do they care? They seem so frantic to get somewhere, but how can we know where we are going if we have no concept of the past or our place in the broader scheme of the cosmos? Nights spent in this place demonstrate that the human mind, once freed from artificial daily obligations and self imposed problems, is amazingly versatile. In the glow of light produced long ago and so unfathomly far away, recent history seems irrelevant as this cosmic reflection sparks the imagination, sprinkling tomorrow with limitless new horizons. In the total silence and nighttime brilliance of this special place, the presence of other humans becomes apparent only as flashing strobes track courses across the velvet backdrop of stars: aircraft streaking across the sky and over the far horizons. Had our ancestors on the desert floor observed such things at the dawn of humanity, those lights and the deep rumble trailing them could have been taken as proof of cosmic voyagers. How accidentally correct their speculation might have been. Even now, with our superior knowledge and scientific tools, our vision is sadly limited, and especially by our own unwillingness to look beyond the towering artificial horizons we build to encase our lives. To me, these stars conjure reflections of a past in which the dawn of humanity and all civilized life since represent a mere instant. Perhaps if we open our minds, these distant objects can also foretell our future. For all their use as unfailing nighttime sentinels directing our movements since the dawn of mankind, the stars may be clues, pathways to intelligence far beyond our ability to comprehend. Perhaps these little specks of light which paint the map of all the universe perceivable to us will someday also guide our descendants to astonishing challenges and stunning discoveries in worlds we can't imagine. Or if we open our minds, maybe we can. Don Hardy |
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