They climbed a switchback trail ascending through stands of aspen and lodgepole pines until line where trees stunted then gave way to snow and lichen spread over rock scree and solid granite slopes.
They set camp beside an alpine lake within a cradle of surrounding peaks that shone grey in day and changed lavender with different depths of hue in nighttime sky of glowing moon and stars. To witness, it appeared as a dream, a mirage: an oasis in the sky.
Together, they rested and gazed upon the heavens and its pattern of ancient legends that circled and changed with earth’s celestial place in Universe.
Silence and small talk rose into deeper thoughts made more striking in the vantage and vision of their world. There was the sight of stars above and beneath as the heavens above mirrored before them on still face of the lake; and behind their camp, a cliff gave way showing further sky of true stars beneath as heavens filled the void between precipice and fallen world below.
Inspired, she spoke, “If we are honest in our intentions, I believe the Universe wills to support us in attaining what we seek.” She paused in reverie staring upon the cloudless sky spelling stories of the ancients in glittering light as if the stars, too, willed to speak in affirmation of Universe’s aim.
He listened, and as her words settled and took, his gaze moved from the heavens and returned to her. He was affected by the aura of her figure; near-angelic face in the glow of moon, framed in silver-strand hair shining in soft light of an infinite-star sky.
“I agree,” he replied, then paused in thought before speaking more. “But what about us? Do we support it? Do we compliment the Universe? Are our lives Grand or small? Is this existence all material and, as smallness of matter, we nothing to its vastness? Or is there more to this realm? Is there an element of spirit; and, by our soul, are our lives more significant than we are permitted to conceive? Are we given this place and existence in the Cosmos for a purpose? If so, do we use this purpose to the compliment, or destruction, of a Greater Grand Design?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Can we affect the Universe?” he responded. “Can our actions change the heavens?”
“How?”
He took hold of a flat scree stone with sharp edged tip that pressed with near-cut into his index finger as he positioned it in his hand. With side arm throw, he skipped the rock in bounce over still face of the lake. Each landing of the stone sounded in faint smack and scattered mirror image of the sky into waves of dancing stars unsettled in the skipping of the stone; a changed perception of Universe as heavens undulated on the backs of circle-waved starlight in outward spreading rings each place where stone had skipped.
“Acts of the will,” he answered staring at the scattering of the Cosmos before them on the lake. “Can our lives change the Universe?” The rings of the skipped stone settled and the face of the lake stilled back to smooth restoring image of heavens, unmarred and undifferentiated from spread above. “Or do we leave a ripple at best, a movement and motion made and quickly stilled by the greater volume of existence? When we pass, do we leave effect? Or are the ripples of our presence fast absorbed and the eternal order of the Cosmos restored—unmarred—to be witnessed, dismissed, and wondered on—just as we do now—by those that follow after?”
“No man’s ever changed the heavens,” she answered.
“No, but they’ve changed what and how we see.” He pointed to known constellations in the sky, asking her their names, she knowing every one and the stories that they told. “Do not the stories that endure paint perceptions of existence for those that learn and follow after? Maybe nothing in the Universe is changed, but is it a different sky without the legends and the romance? Is it a different existence without the same of God—proven or only a hope? Does not perception and belief change meaning to it all?”
She gave no answer, nor did he. They rested together in silence gazing, still, in contemplation of Heavens tapestry above and repeated reflection on mirror face of oasis in the sky.
A wind rose rippling surface of the lake. Mirror-image stars danced upon its face as voice of the wind spoke from cathedral spires of surrounding peaks. Beneath the cliff, sky shone clear, filled with stars, until falling into blackness that was shadow of the life and forest from which they rose.
It was the nearest either came to ever being among the stars.