One dark night
fired by love's urgent longing
ah, the sheer grace --
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled
... with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.
This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where You waited for me
You whom I knew so well.
One night last autumn I was strangely drawn to the beauty of a moonlit night; there was a strong urge to become part of the night and its beauty. After finishing my kitchen work, I went outside for a walk in the woods with my little puppy. The powerful beauty of the night stirred in my soul. The large silvery moon cast an eerie glow on my world, darkly engraving towering spruce trees against the lighter spaces between earth and its heavens. As the puppy trotted obediently and silently beside me, our shadowy figures against the ground were as daguerreotypes of days past. Almost without provocation, except by the incredibly soft beauty of the night, I felt the desire to meditate. I sat down on a grassy spot and my puppy sat by my side.
Entrance into meditation was easy and natural, taking me into a quietness of no-thinking and timelessness. When meditation was finished, I slowly opened my eyes to find my little dog sitting directly in front of me, watching me with ears erect. The moon, no longer among the spruce trees, had moved into larger spaces diminishing the contrasting blackness of the ethereal forest and the heavens. I found that I was covered with a heavy layer of shimmering dew. I don't know how long I had been meditating, but it was unimportant. I remained sitting on the dewy grass as a flow of nature swept through me. The moon, the shadows, the dew, my dog, and I were one in the silence of the moonlight night. I was aware of the omniscient feeling of detachment, a detachment from knowing the world through myself. I was one with the flow of the universe.