The Night the Stars Spoke: A Stargazing Experience

I want to share this because it involved no substances, and I think people should know that the states the medicines produce are also available — sometimes — without them. I had been going through a hard time. A friend suggested I drive out to the desert and look at the stars. I thought it was a silly suggestion. I did it anyway.

I drove 2 hours from the city, parked, walked a short way, and lay down on the sand. The sky was absurd. I have no other word. I had seen dark skies before, but this one felt different — closer, more present, as if it were a surface I could touch. I lay there for what I later learned was 4 hours. At some point, the stars stopped being 'up there' and became 'here' — not in a spatial sense, but in a belonging sense. I was not looking at the universe. I was the universe looking at itself.

I cried. I laughed. I felt a peace I had never felt. It was not an emotion; it was a recognition — like remembering something I had always known but forgotten. I drove home at 3am and did not sleep. I did not need to. The feeling faded over the following days, but something in the foundation shifted. I am not 'cured' of my problems. But I have a reference point now — a memory of what is possible — and that has made all the difference.