Night reflection

Night Sky

Looking up into the blackness my eyes begin to adjust as I locate the large dipper and then the smaller dipper. This makes my mind reflect back through time to my youth when I was trying to learn the consolations. I stand motionless engulfed in the darkness and slowly realize that it is not so dark. Peering into the shadows of the mountain – dark clouds – skyline my sight becomes clearer and my other senses become more in tuned to the night. I can hear the wind whispering in the tree tops and an air plane off in the distant. I hear the engine sound long before I can spot the flashing lights heading to some far off destination. Still looking up I begin to notice the clouds as the moonlight reflects a hidden sun and I begin to create pictures out of the clouds envisioning spaceships from Star Trek. My mind soon turns to the Lord of the Rings as the cool and dampness of the night air fills my other senses. I can almost imagine being on the adventure with Frodo and Gandalf as they head to the mountain of doom in Mordor. This is not the first time these thoughts have filled my mind. Recalling the first time I read the Lord of the Rings in Banff Alberta way back in 1982, I was so impressed with the mountains and environment and this story that it subconsciously effected my future. Here I stand tonight once more with the mountains surrounding me and so once again I am brought back in time to the place that is fantasy but real to my imagination. Memory recalls the time when I was hiking the Rideau Trail and I began the hike by taking a Grey Hound bus to Smith Falls Ontario in the middle of the night – locating the trail markers just out side the city limits only to curl up in a ditch of a farmers field to get some sleep till the sun rose. No tent – no sleeping bag – just me and some warm clothes and the stars. That was for pleasure. Then there were the times when I was on night manoeuvres with the Canadian army in Petawawa Ontario. Even though the riffle did not have real ammunition just carrying it gave a sense of security. Walking along deserted dirt roads or sitting up all night in a trench looking for the enemy to approach my mind would once more reflect on The Lord of the Rings.