We groped along the dirt path in the onyx night bereft of moonlight. Stars twinkled brightly in the inky abyss of space like a fish eye lens high above our heads. The sky seemed to stretch on forever, with only the silhouettes of spruces and pines loosely clinging to the duff under our feet, stretching out their scraggily limbs as if unknown assassins reaching out for us in the stillness, disrupting our view of the stars for only a brief moment as we passed by. Granite protruded from the ground around us like the backs of dolphins breaching the ocean’s surface, a still undulation of the permanent ground, and underneath our feet, the loose gravel skidded caught in the treads of our shoes.

The sky unfolded overhead as we made our way into a clearing, the bony spruce encircling us like a stockade of rawboned statues, as we walked upon the mounded, rough stone covered in lichen and moss. Small plants, eking an existence out of the minuscule patches of duff which rested in depressions and bowls carved out by centuries of rainfall, tickled our uncovered calves as we wandered in the barely illumined night. Craning our necks high we stared into the brilliant milky sky of stars and heavenly bodies phosphorescent against the inky vacuum of space.  Lying down against the the rough surface of rock, the cool stone penetrated our shirts, chilling our bodies, as a breeze whipped off the ocean crashing in the distance, shrouded by the darkness and gaunt, gnarled trees.

The only sounds were the waves off in the distance as they crashed upon the shore, their spume resting upon the barnacled covered, pink boulders, that dotted the rocky beach as they washed over the tops with furious vigor, and the wind carrying heady, salt foam, which whipped off the vast ocean, a dark blob of nothingness, writhing as one, heaving, erratic body, somewhere out there, past our ability to view in the abysmal chasm of that hour. Laying there, with the night like a blanket caressing and covering our bodies, we could barely see each other only feet away. The stars exploded overhead with each twinkle and wink of light, their luminosity changing colors, like auras depicting moods. In those moments we seemed to melt into the rock, and a peacefulness took us over, washing away any worries that the mind trapped and imprisoned for later distress. The world embraced us, and encapsulated us in this wonderland of nature.