Go outside late at night. Go really outside.
Outside of your town. Outside of your county.
Make your escape from all of their lights.
Look for a place most people forget if you can still check your Facebook -
you're not there yet
Go when it's clear, go when it's cool. When the air is dry and when there is no moon, go
into a field and lie flat on you're back,
gaze out to the sky and revel
in that
When you feel your hands clenching the grass so you don't fall - there's no turning back
Pay attention to the weight of your arms.
Feel the pressure where the ground meets the skin of your back.
Draw in the deepest breath that you can and release that grip on the grass.
As the panic subsides and you realize
that there wasn't a 'down' to fear
There is no 'up' out here
The ground doesn't hold you down
it pulls
us near.
When you begin to sympathize with the magnets on your fridge - you're right on the fringe.
Look into the heavens.
Look at all those stars floating around.
Imagine them moving imperceptibly fast
across distance so vast
that a thousand consecutive lifetimes barely amount to a glass.
Like water swirling around an infinite,
unreachable drain,
a cosmic fluid where all this you can see is contained and entangled,
constrained
by a simple but irrefutable fact
that regardless of size all mass
simply attracts
other mass
When the stars pull on us
we pull back
So draw in the longest, deepest glance that you can, when you can't picture where the nearest tree to you stands - you're closing in
Now ignore your weight. Ignore your hands.
Ignore the pressure of your back stuck not on top but to the side of this tiny speck of sand. Forget about this tiny speck of sand entirely
When it's just you floating,
pulling the stars from their skies
When the earth is the body
to which you are the eyes,
you
have arrived.
Stay as long as you like.
Mitchell Paradise
9.16.15