Rachel Worthington: A Wilderness Experience

When I lived in Montana, it was impossible to not see beauty in nature every day. I recall an experience I had one warm summer night. It was the night after graduation, a girlfriend and I went for a walk in the valley near school. A heat storm had been brewing all evening, and it was dark by now. Every few moments the sky would escape the darkness, as the lightning illuminated it with flashes of purple and white. All the stars seemed to twinkle as brighly as the lightning bolts. On the mountains ahead, little fires were igniting from nature's electricity. Trees would burst into flames, simmer to a steady burn and moments later, the fire would vanish. We stood there together, but it felt as if we were in two different worlds. I watched as the fires danced across the mountains. I felt an essence all around me, not a presence, and it felt divine. I don't necessarily believe what I was experiencing came from a spiritual being, but I think beauty in nature captured me that night. it opened all of my senses at once and allowed me to have an experience with a phenomena that I will never forget.