Sunrise is my favourite time of day. After a good night’s sleep, alone on the patio where we are staying, facing east, listening to the chorus of birds and watching a squirrel perform a tight rope act along the electrical wire running from a pole in the neighbour's yard to the house. It is possible to set the whole tone for the day sitting quietly with a cup of steaming coffee.
Utah’s Mt. Olympus rises in the background behind the uneven V shaped space between two homes next door, turning, for a short time, light pink just before the sun breaks above the horizon to the north. The few conifers covering its limestone face appear almost black when the light hits them at this early summer angle.
I’ve gone back to meditating every morning, and when the mood matches the sites and sounds of dawn, it is possible to realize completely the oneness of nature. Even the slowly increasing sounds of city traffic as people travel to work in steadily growing numbers isn’t disturbing. They too are part of nature, and are no more separate from me than the squirrel, which momentarily has stopped along the high wire as if caught up in a meditation of its own.
If only every morning started this way, I think, I could handle anything. But the next morning is different. No, the morning is the same. My frame of mind is different; stress, a less than good night’s sleep, trying too hard to deal with expectations – my own and other’s that I have allowed to get to me. It’s gone now. Awakening is a process, not an event. Keep at it. There will be other mornings like it again because they’re all like it, if we take the time to see.
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