I spent this past evening in the company of my dad and my dog, two of my favorite beings. It had already been a great day as I woke bright and early to catch an 8am train to New Haven for a horse show. My dad met me at the station with my car and together we went to the show, where Ham is being riden by a young girl as part of the financial agreement I have arranged in connection with his keep. Suffice it to say the day was spent around those whom I love the most.
This evening, dad and I shucked corn and watched a Bonnie Raitt concert on VH1. Later, I was standing in the kitchen slicing fruit when dad came in from the porch, asking me to come outside and look at something.

I stepped out onto the front porch wearing my slippers. The night air had that first hint of fall in it and the sky was overflowing with stars to an extent that I have never before seen. Despite my inadequate footwear, out we walked, me, dad, and our dog Bindi into a field of freshly cut hay. I hoisted myself up on a big round bale and lay there on my back, staring up.

The milky way was fully visable and streached across the sky, seemingly close enough to touch. From across the field came the voices of two hoot owls, calling to one another.
The front field at my father's house is cut by Mr. Adams, an old farmer who lives in a mobile home down the road. Unlike most hay farmers, Mr. Adams comes to collect his hay but once a year, I think because he believes that a seldom mowed field yields greener hay. Perhaps he is right, because the bale i lay upon, moist from the morning's rain shower, smelled fresh and sweet.

The night was perfect and was experienced with equal intensity by my different senses. I would like to say that starring up at the endless night sky, I felt insignificant...but it was somewhat the opposite. I felt connected and limitless. There was no longer a clear deliniation between my physical self and that seemingly endless void created by the New Hampshire night. Just as Siddhartha sat beneath the bodhi tree, observing himself as connected to nature, discovering the universal truth that all is one, I lay upon a big round hay bale, and came to the same conclusion.