“What on earth are you doing?” I asked myself while sitting alone in a field in the middle of nowhere at 8pm with temperatures swiftly dropping to single digits. It hits me as the camera shutter closes and the 13s exposure flashes onto the screen, the elusive comet Neowise, the very same comet that has been getting me out of the house and into the bush every night for the last week, there it is in all its glory.

2020 has been one epic sky display after the next, a sky watchers dream, but why are we so fascinated by the sky; the moon, the sun, the clouds and the trillions of stars? Does the sky simply fuel our wonder, our imagination, are they fancies of touching the sky and surfing the stars, or does it simply give us perspective and drive us to bigger things? These are questions that I can’t answer for anyone, because each person alive has been given their own unique mind and led by different paths to my own.

For me, I look up to find peace, the billions of complex mechanisms working in a remarkable harmony, the idea that my problems are far smaller than where we truly are in the universe, and in the blink of an eye we can be snuffed out, “thanks for existing, lots of love,” the Milky Way.

Life at current is very noisy and we need to take time away from the noise, the sound of thousands of machines, the people rumbling, the internet "opinionating" and of coarse the light pollution that keeps the skies from revealing their true selves. We need a move and towards the silence and the peace that all this wonder can bring. This is why I’m outside at night in the middle of nowhere, taking stock, slightly cold on the outside.

Yes this year has taken so much from us; friends, family and livelihoods, even though the pain this year has brought to many lives is truly regrettable, this year has also given us a gift, a blessing in disguise as you will, one that is there to be grabbed by anyone who dares to be savage enough lose the superficial luxuries that have enslaved us and to get a little uncomfortable. Many of us have forced slowed down, given more time to reflect, so get out, take that time to reflect, take a deep breath and to look up and marvel at the skies.