Night between Day 3 and 4 of the Vision Fast- stargazing

 In the middle of the night, I woke up hot with a dry mouth and chapped lips. I stripped off my layers and lay there for a long time. 

My chapped lips remind me of childhood because I frequently had chapped lips. It brings me right back to that place of being a kid. 

Chapped lips are about shedding the dead skin and regrowing new skin. 

Finally, I realized I needed to get up and tend to my body. I drank some water, put some of my layers back on, put my shoes on, and went to pee.

The moon was yellow, almost full, almost at the horizon, and huge in the sky. But I couldn’t fully see it because there were trees in the way. I wanted to get to a ridge where I could see it. 

I made myself some electrolyte water and packed up my emergency pack with my first-aid kit and lighter. I secured my sleeping bag and other stuff at camp so it wouldn’t blow away if the wind picked up. I got my headlamp on. 

Much to my dismay and surprise, by the time I did all that, it was already too late. The mood had fallen below the horizon and I could no longer see it. 

I walked toward where it had been. I tried getting a little higher and closer so that I could see it, but it was gone. 

I was so disappointed. 

Sometimes things don’t turn out the way we hope. Everything is temporary. 

I returned to my tarp. I moved my sleeping bag out from underneath the tarp and laid underneath the stars. The sky was so black since the moon had set that the Milky Way was clearer than I’d seen it in a long, long time. 

I saw 3 shooting stars over the course of the next few hours! 

I also saw many airplanes and satellites moving across the sky, and I wondered what the people on the planes were doing, where they were going and why. 

I meditated. 

I did one meditation where I think “filling up” on the in breath and “letting go” on the out breath. I thought of all the people in my life who I will most likely witness their death and attend their funerals in the coming years: my parents, aunts and uncles, mentors, and friends. Even Bruno. Even Brie (at some point unless I die first). Even me. 

Either they will mourn me or I will mourn them. Either way, we will have to say goodbye. 

I thought of grandpa and said “Hi” to him. 

I told my Dad I love him and thanked him for everything. Same with Mom. 

I just watched those stars and thought about how big the universe is and how small I am. 

And how small an atom is and how big I am relative to that. 

The macro and the micro. They both exist in one, big fractal pattern. 

Cancer is when the cells go haywire and the whole body - one type of universe - dies. 

So the best thing we can do in this world is to be a good cell, not a cancerous one.