Second Night-sky

Although I am hemmed in by the comforting quilt-like folds of rolling mountain ranges, the ocean's landscape still fascinates me.  On the one hand, the immensity of oceanic space overwhelms me with fear.  If I were pinpointed upon the silken skin of the most remote water, that expansive fluidity would appear as mind-boggling as the distance from Terra to her sun.  The cold sweat common with delusional illnesses, when clouded nightmares prickle neck-hair and the body projects itself from the dream by sitting in shivers stark-straight in bed, provokes the edges of my mind when I mentally thrust myself on the horizon of the sea.

And yet, on the other hand, I imagine the rhythmic current, constant on my limbs and back, the support of the seawater, and the under-viewed beauty of nature's puddled tears.  Consider the multitude of sea creatures, whose shimmering glow mimics the stars that shine above, so as to create its own map of constellations.  And, there, pressed at the point where two night skies meet, I imagine the stories above and the stories below that thread these stars together.  Or, consider the brewing clouds, whose fullness brings a silent snow or heated thunderstorm battering upon the land, but also glistening onto the flourishing ocean.  What would it be like to see firsthand snow sift onto ocean-dunes?

Friend, does something terrify you?  Perhaps you have an impending decision or a looming deadline; perhaps an illness caters that which you want not or a past experience emerges from the depths?  Regardless of the fear that threatens to overwhelm, try to turn your eye in a way that sees beauty where you dread.  Remind yourself of the comfort of a friend or love, and cautiously peer at that second night-sky to imagine the beauty there to see.