Beyond a Certain Shade of Gray

A young girl went out one night to lay beneath the stars. As she lay there quietly, gazing at the lights, she heard a voice of pure awe just to her left, "beautiful" the voice whispered as if riding the wind. The girl, young, but intuitive, turned immediately, although already aware of whose company she was in. "Mother Earth," she smiled as she spoke, "it is beautiful." She agreed and noticing a thick blanket of dark clouds moving in to cover up the gorgeousness overhead asked innocently, "why are you covering it up?" Mother Earth began to move as the young girl posed her question. She extended arms of grass around the girl, snuggling her in just right. Each blade of green had purpose and place, as they wound themselves perfectly around the girls hand. Mother Earth spoke softly, still in her whispery windy way and breathed her words confidently into the galaxy. Her voice was brave and sure of itself, the way it sounds as she guides the crashing seas or shakes the branches of ancient willow trees; A beautiful voice matured with time. "I have spent many years under the night sky." She began in a rush of summer breeze that the girl, cuddled into the grassy surface of Mother Earth's arms, hardly felt. "And I have found in my millions of years of gazing at those sparkling dots, that much of their magic exists in the unknown." The girl considered this for a moment as Mother Earth tilted back ever so slightly to ponder the familiar atmospheric landscape above her. "You see," she whispered recognizing a sense of bewilderment in the sweet girls moonlit eyes, "the things around us, including the stars above us ," her windy breath rustled the girls curly hair as she pointed upward to the sky, "as gorgeous as they are to look at, are only as beautiful as we believe them to be." The girl nodded, looking skyward, as she eagerly attempted to understand Mother Earth's words. 

"Have you ever wondered," Mother Earth began to question, "why we feel so drawn to the stars?" The girl shrugged, unaware if she had ever thought of such a thing before, but either way, finding herself desperately curious for the answer. "It is because the stars make us dream. They give us a sense of wonderment and imagination. After all, a whole world without answers is a world waiting to be built. Beauty just waiting to be made. And that can only happen," Mother Earth tapped on the girl's small forehead, “in there.” The little girl ate up Mother Earth's answer. She breathed in the scent of her wild breath, summer soaked and very much like the smell of rain. She felt her lungs expand and tickle with understanding. "That is why," Mother Earth continued, happy to see the young girl so alive with curiosity and excitement, "that is why I cover the stars sometimes. There is not much beauty in knowing everything," Mother Earth concluded, and shifted the ground gently beneath the girls back, "there is however, a great deal of beauty in glimpses of truth magnified by imagination." Mother Earth beckoned the little girl to close her eyes, the little girl did so quickly curious to see the things she spoke of. 

The two lay silently for a long time, both picturing the depths of outer space in their own minds-endlessly beautiful and dreamy. Each felt the wonderment and joy Mother Earth had been referring too. Each glimpsed the beauty of it all in their own way and let their imaginations do the rest. The girl longed to swim among the clouds, sliding down the spine of the Milky Way, landing softly and effortlessly on Saturn's Rings. While Mother Earth imagined moving beyond the skies she had always known, discovering universes far beyond her own. And both were so 

captivated by their dreams of the cosmos, that neither noticed as the clouds finally stretched all the way out, clinging to the edges of the sky surrounding them, and masking the stars beyond, in a certain shade of gray. 

It was then that the little girl's voice rose from the scene, much like a single shooting star in a backdrop of pure black, bright and true and burning every spectacular color you can think of. Mother Earth leaned in close to hear, "I suppose that this is the best part," the girl whispered, her voice sounding well beyond her years, "since it's all up here," she released Mother Earth's hand and touched her own forehead, "the beauty never leaves." And as Mother Earth watched the young girl gather her blanket and walk quietly toward her house and her room and the bed in which she would dream of the stars; she felt a sense of hope she hadn't in a while. She settled herself back down into her familiar circular form, suddenly aware of her bold surfaces on which humans everywhere glanced upward to the stars. Mother Earth repeated the words, and sent a gust of warm air out across her vastness, allowing the words to ride her winds and fill the lungs of everything living thing abiding on her, "the beauty," she whispered, "the beauty never leaves."