I’ll admit it, I’m not all that thrilled about going back to school. 

So last week, clinging on the final dregs of summer, I spent several nights backyard camping. I was awaiting the early morning, when dew and sunbeams would wash away the darkness for a new day. Morning has always been my favorite time. The crickets, birds, and smell of wet dirt reek of innocence and hope. After all, it is a new day, bursting with possibilities; Anything can happen, if you wait and see.

And see I did. 

I woke up at 3:30am, dragging myself from my blankets and stomping barefoot through the wet, itchy blades of grass. Chilled and haunted by the night air, I was careful to scrutinize everything I could in the dim light, on my guard for ax murderers and piles of deer droppings, two things I most definitely did not need. That was how I first saw it, through the corner of my eye, looking for nasties hiding in the darkness. Above me, the night sky was unfurled in all its glory, a blanket of black velvet, untouched by clouds. Stars were smashed across the darkness as if God had hurled a diamond at earth, a gem that crashed and exploded into a million shards of glittering debris. Neck craned awkwardly, I spun in slow circles, stunned. How many were there? Living near the city, I had seen stars before, but it was as if they came from another universe. Growing up, the stars were a small handful, sprinkled sparingly across the sky. Now, I saw a much different picture. The sheer number was paralyzing.

How many? A hundred?
How many more couldn’t I see?
How many worlds could I never begin to imagine?

I suddenly ached to know the constellations, the names of the burning flecks of light. I squinted, trying to find the Big Dipper, but I just saw it everywhere, hidden away like a broken puzzle piece in the ancient runes. There were too many stars to pick out a single constellation.

I imagined shepherds with their cotton flocks, lying down and staring at the moon. I could almost hear their voices ringing through time with stories of Andromeda and Cassiopeia, fortunes written into the zodiac, praying to find their own places in the world.

Mankind has been fascinated by the stars from the Garden of Eden, when the first were painted over our heads. Something about them has touched us in a way nothing else can. I don’t know if it’s in their glow, their mystery, their unknowability. Maybe it’s something beyond what humans can understand. Maybe we never will.

Something about the stars shows us that magic does exist. It’s everywhere. Almost every element in the universe was formed in the erupting heavenly furnace. Everything we see and touch is made of stardust. Even us.

In the sky, magic exists in the stars. Here on earth, magic exists in us.