Between Heaven and Earth

Last  night DC and I traveled out to the Stonehaugh stargazing pavilion to watch the Perseids meteor shower. We took tea and plenty of warm layers - even in summer it can be chilly out there. Located on the edge of a small relatively remote forestry village the pavilion was a good destination away from the street lights of the city. It was about 11pm when we arrived and it was still, quiet and peaceful. The moonless sky clear but not fully dark; at this time of year in these parts a vestige of sunlight remains. The air perhaps slightly hazy. The night had a sanctity which imparted a natural respect for and willingness / need to remain in silence. In the starry, still, quiet night there was almost nothing but now. Under this benevolent firmament past and future started to slip away out of mind. DC enjoyed the adventure with a certain child like wonder. A family with children joined us and there was a lovely warmth. Time passes at a different rate for children and one soon asked in a natural and innocent voice 'mum, when are we going back?' Meteors were to be seen, some quite impressive but I guess he may have been a bit underwhelmed. I was feeling that sense of our being both spiritually at and away from home that such nights afford so 'back' had its own resonance for me. Suspended between Heaven and Earth we live our lives as best we can. We each seem to have two drives within us; the one to come out of unity, to experience and the other to return home. Nights like this one help us merge with the experience, we feel a resonance within the sky and within us, we feel still and yet vibrantly alive. Whatever all too human desires and associated grasping we get caught up in, taking us away from ourselves, we do have our times of returning home.

Literally returning home (to our house) we rinsed the tea flask and prepared for bed. But the sight in passing of young lovers as we set off to leave had triggered an old wound in me. They were blissfully loosing and finding  themselves in each other and in their youth. Those years did not grant me such routes to unity; I was lonely and fragmented. This night I remained capacious enough to observe this old wound; cast into this night of stillness and being came samsaric teaching. Although there was pain there was pleasure too; I was feeling the sense of having missed out yet was I not also aware of some pleasure of which I missed. Had anything been missed? To know it sufficiently to recognise it was it not as much within me? And the sanctity of the night did not become wiped out by this wound. It was time for bed. This morning DC brought me tea in bed. How lovely to live in each other like this, the everyday reality of interdependence in the joy of giving and receiving.