I walked to a place tonight,…………. As I looked across the water, half way between the shoreline and the island of fire, I saw that the tide had gone out so far that it exposed a large sand bar which swept across my viewpoint for at least a mile or perhaps more, beyond it in the distance I saw a beautiful mountain range that was half covered with a combination of the previous years snow fall and the beginning of this years not so subtle reminder that winter will have dominance is this land once again….. Very soon.  There are clouds on the horizon, partially down the peaks and slopes of the mountains across the water, billowy things, white and dark white, all layered together sporadically atop one another, thick, but with breeches of clear sky showing through, slivered here and there horizontally across the width of the clouds.  As the clouds reach up higher into the sky they become wispy overhead like the hairs on top of the head of an ancient woman or man, where the sun is cleverly hiding behind them, faintly lighting the backs of the clouds giving the illusion that one could reach up and touch that wispy hair. 

I couldn't help but get a little lost in the expanse of beauty that was on every side of me, behind me and below me. 

The simple yet profound beauty of the forest, the salt marsh with it's several small ponds dotted here and there and the narrow strip of sandy beach on which I stood.  The beach strewn with driftwood brought in by the high tides from who knows where or how far away and who could say how very old all of this must be.

In front of me, was the marshy mud slung clay combination of inlet muck covered with sea grasses, various reeds and kelp all sloping and stretching downward to the water that was at low tide, calm yet peaceful for now, until the moon did her dance across the water once again turning this peaceful, tranquil water into a literal river that would rush up the shore and up the bay at a phenomenal rate of speed.  For now though, the water would remain smooth but slightly rippled like glass that was made in the 1920's, slightly out of focus, and at times seemingly at play alternately casting shadows, then patches of soft light across the bay, nothing else disturbing it except groups of ducks paddling there way to some place only known to them for a purpose known only to them giving an amazing contrast of expanse versus compactness, unfathomable age of earth and sky versus the fleeting vapor of life demonstrated by these members of the animal kingdom that were passing by. 

As I again looked across the water to the ever changing sunset that was beginning it's ethereal display of the real and surreal, I saw that the sun had slipped or perhaps had been lowered by the clouds them selves a little further down their own backsides while they were resting on top of and  half way down the mountain range. 

As the sun went to its nocturnal hiding place it began to unveil the rainbow of colors in its rays, which normally are hidden to the eyes of man during the day.  I couldn't help but to be drawn into natures self declared epiphany, an epoch of her own intent, a timeless, reoccurring act of her original version of lovemaking, birthing, and nurturing her latest creation.  I couldn't help but feel as though I was witnessing both something ancient beyond comprehension as well as something eternally new.  As I watched this scene revealed itself to me, I suddenly, inexplicably became awestruck by the strangest feeling that I had somehow been there at the very beginning when first all things were conceived and yet, I myself, being birthed then and there for the very first time. An odd and pervasive sense of my own compactness and expanse, which melded together with a new appreciation for the duality of my own nature seemed to pervade my now, awkward sense of reality.