Time in such a wilderness was figured by the sands of red dunes, the dazzle of bruised skies and strange unscented flowers, and an electrifying sensation of freedom. And in the cool black sea of each night, the gods themselves came, all asplendor in the brightest diamond stars imaginable. It was only in the Southern Hemisphere that the whole of the Milky Way's robe could be seen. I had never known a night sky like that of the outback--and always with just me and it, one on one. If every person could spend just one night in such an immense heaven, perhaps all of us might realize what a miracle each second of life is. Like a well-salted sailor on a vast outback sea, I could now sense below the flapping cloth of my umbrella any breaking of the weather, long before any change in the wind. Whether it was a boiling heat wave from the equator to my stern, or a titanic cloud pack drifting toward me from the Antarctic's stormy wastes in the south, my body sensed its approach long befopre my eyes could discern it. It was like being able to see the future from a hundred miles away. Most of the time I saw peace. Sometimes I had to tremble, watching great hateful forces approaching. At those times I wanted to scuttle away, like some puny hermit crab on the floor of a deep and dark ocean. -- Worldwalk book, pg. 460