Stargazing - San Lorenzo Nights.

Watching for shooting stars is a careful work of patience. One should never divert one's gaze from the sky. It is also a painful work of determination, as the position that is required is seldom a natural one.

We are lucky people, as we have the privilege of using a terrace that is as advantageous during the day - with its views over a castle ruin, as by night, with a star studded celestial vault.

Watching for the shooting stars can be a deceitful task, as by looking intently at the sky one is unwillingly exposed to other uncommon things. Tonight for instance, I was painstakingly waiting when I saw a star moving in a orderly and straight motion, surely shooting stars don't move like that! So my other two guesses were: an UFO or a satellite! Taking the easy way out I believe I saw the latter, and for the second time in my life! (the first was as a little girl, it went past my bedroom window.)

If you watch for long enough, you feel almost as if the sky is taking hold of you and eating you up. One feel one's oneness with the universe, one can understand there isn't "them" or "there" and "us" and "here", but it becomes a bowl of "star soup" and you are part of it, you start dancing with the Great Bear and Oby Wan Kenobi. One can almost touch the stars, and I felt as when I am at home on my bed, almost going to sleep, gazing at my "glow in the dark" star stickers.

Then the most amazing thing happen! A shooting star! I had almost forgotten why I was doing there in that uncomfortable chair giving my neck reasons to annoy me with cervical pain in the morning, and I forget for a minute of all my problems and went back to my childish beliefs and made unreasonable wishes like "happiness" and clapped my hands - but by then the magic was gone.

(And you do it all over again - going into the cosmic soup, seeing satellites and  flying saucers - up til you see another shooting star.)