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CMarie lies on the lawn of the house she grew up in, and considers the stars. How little the night needs from us -- we do not need to know the constellations, or which creatures are making what sounds. And still they give us awe.

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This episode takes place on očhéthi šakówiŋ, Arapahoe, Ute, and Cheyenne homelands.

Host and Writer: CMarie Fuhrman Field Recordist: Jacob Job Outdoor audio recorded in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado Editor: Erin Jones Producers: Rebekah Romberg, Kibwe Cooper Engineer: Luis Antonio Perez Art: Maria Juliana Pinzón Executive Producer: Brad Turner Additional Editorial Support: Jo Erickson, Emily Williams Thanks also to Jodi Gersh, Clara Shelton, Arielle Wilson, Brittany Werges, Martin Skavish, Justin Peacock and Jon Pinnow

Terra Firma is a production of Colorado Public Radio's Audio Innovations Studio.

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…This time, to my parent's lawn in Masonville, Colorado

[Gentle breeze, delicate hoot of an owl] Tonight, I am home on the Front Range and lying on the same ground I laid on for so many nights as a child [sudden insistent chirp]. Descendents of the toads and crickets I knew then chirp and croak now. I look at the stars and wonder what sound they might make. The word twinkle gives me a hint, as does the word shimmer. Then I wonder if the stars are lonely [hooting]. I wonder if they fall now just for the chance that someone might wish upon them. I wonder if, as the lights of the city grow stronger, the Milky Way will all but disappear from our view. I think about the millions of nights before this one and the people who slept on this same piece of earth before me, and I know that lives were not easy then, just as they are not easy now, and I wonder if the night sky and darkness brought the same kind of peace as it does for me, tonight.

Even as a child, I was not afraid of the dark. Not if I was outside.

Back then, as soon as the rest of the house had gone to sleep, I would slip through the screen door, walk barefoot past the threshold, summon my sleeping dog Taffy from her house, and lie on the cool grass of our lawn, Taffy beside me. As if I were the needle of a compass, I pointed my toes north toward Horsetooth Mountain. With my fingers laced beneath my head, the bend of my elbows&nbsp; pointed east and west toward Devil’s Backbone and the Big Thompson Canyon. My eyes were unfixed and wandered the night sky.

I had no interest in astronomy. The only constellations I knew then are the only constellations I know now. The Big Dipper is still pouring the same heavenly liquid it was pouring into the Little Dipper since my dad pointed it out almost 50 years ago. Lights were fewer then, so the Milky Way was as common to my seeing as Horsetooth Peak itself [chirp]. I remember wishing on the first star and every star that dropped, and though I cannot remember those wishes, I like to think that more than a couple have come true.

As a child, the landscape of the stars was a landscape of no thought. No naming, no need to know. It was like staring out at the sea or across a meadow seeking vastness instead of answers. The cobalt Colorado night sky in all its wonder filled me and calmed me in a way that no room ever could [wind picks up, chirps interrupt the stillness].&nbsp;

Tonight, just like those childhood nights before, crickets and toads fill the air with wingsong, croaks and clicks.

This is the gift of night. You do not need to fall asleep in soft grass or in a mountain meadow. You do not need&nbsp; a remote hilltop or even solitude. You do not need to know the names of planets, whether the moon is waxing or waning, or if the stars make up a constellation or if they are falling so that you might cast a wish. You do not need to pray or whisper.

You only need step outside, into the night. With a willingness to experience emptiness, to allow for awe. Come out from under the ceilings and roofs that cover and keep us, and look up.&nbsp; Let the night creatures do the talking. Surrender to the dark. Risk, for a moment, unknowing, wonder. Risk delight. Then carry all of that into your dreams, behind your closed eyes into wherever you make your bed [distant hoots continue, wind pulses steadily through trees].

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Terra Firma is a podcast about the outdoors, the sounds of the natural world and our place in it. Each episode runs about 5-10 minutes and pairs reflections on nature with gorgeous soundscapes captured in wild places.

Terra Firma

CMarie lies on the lawn of the house she grew up in, and considers the stars.

The Dark (Masonville, Colorado) | Colorado Public Radio

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