Oh… back in May in California I wrote Under Stars. It was just a journal about getting ready to leave the Yosemite Country for Oregon. However, I remarked how I slept under the stars one night, without a tent or tarp covering me.

Hadn’t done this much before. However, since May, I’ve done it probably 30 times. It’s become quite addicting.

It’s also practical. I hate setting up tents. I put this action up there with mopping floors with a rag. Pulling out corners, bending over to hammer in stakes, placing the tarp correctly underneath, and other irritating actions when it’s windy or raining or when I’m tired… yuk!

So, I’ve gotten used to just setting up a cot to sleep under the stars, and out west, away from the light pollution of cities, the stars can shine and shoot magnificently. The Milky Way is so clear. So are satellites orbiting at very high altitudes. Ain’t seen flying saucers though.

The best part is the fresh air. I truly sleep better with constantly circulating air. I truly sleep better in the wind.

I do still wake up at night, though less under stars. At home, I often wake up at 2 am, and then fall asleep again at 3. Sometimes I’m inclined to stare at my phone – yes, the worst thing you can do! But under stars I just stare at them. I don’t care that I’m awake. They’re majestic.

They are. In this modern world we’ve forgotten about the stars. Most people live in cities where they can’t even see them. And those who live in the country, and can see them, watch TV at night until they fall asleep anyways. There’s so little deliberate effort to go outside at night and look at the twinkling darkness. There is so little deliberate effort to find the Big Dipper, and Orion’s Belt, and Mars, and… hell, I don’t know what else. I didn’t grow up looking at constellations.

Maybe I should learn. Many men of the past were fascinated by stars. Their lives were dedicated to learning their paths and ways. I’m not interested in becoming Galileo, but, as I was thinking the other night outside Zion at 2:30 am, you are staring at a display of elements God put there for your wonderment, and I wonder what He would have me learn from their infinity.

Maybe nothing. Nonetheless, they are far, far better than TikTok videos at 2 am, and thus I’m grateful for experiencing this simple and free pleasure for sleeping under them.

Sleeping on an open cot has been wonderful. That’s all.