As the moon crests the ridge I was nearly asleep. It fills the basin in a grey and chilly light. Casting deep and mysterious shadows. The dark old snags reflect an eerie glow, skeletons of former giants lost in summer fires, now stark in their silence against the moonlit sky. I set my grandpa's old film camera on a rock, line up the shot, and use the timer to engage the shutter. It looks like a good shot, but with film you just have to wait and see. Satisfied, I lay down and gaze into the night, and at some point my eyes close and I drift off. I sleep well, deep and restful, even in the bright moonlight. As first light barely starts to show, I rise and take my wool blanket down to the shoreline, and sit. I hear sticks breaking in the distance, and rocks shifting up high along the ridge. The deer and elk I assume, moving back up into the trees after their early morning drink. From across the lake my eyes catch something subtle, a creature maybe, moving deafly in the grass. Its movement is even and fluid, and in the dim light it is difficult to follow. In one subtle motion it glides up atop of a downed tree, then off onto the ground again, whilst neither slowing, nor making a sound that I can hear. It moves like water flowing, easily and effortless. Its ghost-like, disappearing and re-appearing, nearly invisible in the tall grass. And then, in an instant, its gone…the moment lasts a lifetime. I feel some buried part of me stir, some wild power in the deep. The awareness is intoxicating, and I feel a wholeness that feels new, and very, very old. Like remembering something long forgotten. If life consisted more of mornings like this one, who only knows?
-Morning 34 of a 6 week solo survival trip in the Marble Mountains