Something in the Sky
A few years ago, sitting back in a deck chair in my garden, I was gazing at the sky, marvelling at the clouds moving along quickly. A windy day.
In the gap between two clouds, I noticed a white disc. It was still there after another cloud passed underneath it. The thing — it was rather large — didn’t move on like the clouds. If anything, it looked like it moved in the opposite direction, ever so slightly. It just hung there and spun, before another cloud moved in front of it a few seconds or a minute later. Once that cloud had moved away, the sky was blue and empty again.
I can hear all those voices, telling me it was a natural phenomenon I’m too ignorant to know about, or an optical illusion, or just a cloud doing something funny for my benefit... It was neither. And before you try to tell me what I saw and explain it, don’t. You didn’t sit next to me on that day. You didn’t look up with me. I was alone. Most likely you’d imagine what I saw, which wouldn’t be what I saw.
There was also a feeling of dread and awe. I sat transfixed, not able to look away, even as I heard my dog barking in the house. It wasn’t the first time I saw something like this. It hadn't been — and is not — always discs. I saw white orbs in a triangle formation, circling and converging and flying apart. And other “things”.
I don’t care that much about what I’m seeing. It doesn’t matter. The memories and anticipation of these sightings are less visual than they are visceral. Not only dread and awe, but serenity and wonder. A kind of ineffable knowing. Those things in the sky always feel as close as they seem too far away to grasp.
When I was young, I felt the urge to explain away what I saw. It must have been this or that. There surely was a rational explanation. I’m not the kind of guy that sees things. I didn’t dare to talk to anyone about it because nobody else did. I told my mother once. She told me I must have seen birds. They can do amazing things. I stopped looking at the sky for a while.
Maybe we are like boulders in the river. Reality washes over us. We can’t hold on to it. Sometimes cold and sometimes warm. Seldom clear and sometimes muddy. Always changing. In a few hundred years, there’s just a pebble left of us. Then just a grain of our former selves, and we’re finally able to go with the flow and become part of the river.
There are things we’ll never see, hear, touch or think of. But they’re out there. There are many things we could perceive, if we wanted to, or if we’d just go with the flow. We won’t be able to make the river stop, but we can appreciate its magnificence.
I don’t know what the things I see in the sky are, or what they mean. I only know how they make me feel. That’s why I know they have no prosaic explanation. They don’t need any. They are beyond words. Language is a deficient tool.
I can have a wonderful conversation with my dog Chase, a smart and beautiful Belgian Malinois. I rarely speak to him; he barks occasionally. We know what we’re talking about. We move our heads and use facial expressions to communicate, and body language. He picks up well on my moods, I mostly know how he feels and what he wants.
I got Chase when he was a 12-inch puppy. Now I often find myself seeing the world through his eyes. When he sees something in the sky, it’s mostly birds. Sometimes he looks up and I don’t know what he’s gazing at. I wonder if he knows. Maybe.
Maybe we don’t need to know, at least not in a way we can verbalize. If we stop thinking in words, things become clearer. That’s what happens when I see those things in the sky. I have no words, but I have impressions and experience a story of emotions. I think it all depends on being able to perceive subtleties. Nuances. This only works in stillness. Without words.
Sometimes, there are euphoric moments when I see “them”, followed by a feeling of apprehension. It reminds me a bit of the moment when I was swimming all on my own for the first time. My father told me to keep moving, then I wouldn’t drown.
Reality is probably not what we think it is. We humans are not the only beings that are self-aware, but maybe we’re the only ones aware of our self-awareness. Even that might be a false assumption. I keep looking at the sky, and even if I might want to know who or what those things I see are, I don’t mind not knowing for a while longer. Until I’m ready.
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