A New Day Dawns

When I wake a little after five, I realize today’s the day. It’s been too long since I got myself to the lake early enough to see a sunrise in all its splendor.

            

I dress quickly and hustle my way out the door and up the hill. The clouds, awaiting my arrival, have layered themselves perfectly. They stretch now across the sky, companionably close without crowding one another. I know this dawn will be spectacular. I am not disappointed.

            

The colors! No simple pinks and oranges here. No, these colors require more evocative language. Indigo, plum, fuchsia, lavender. Cerise, rose, a streak of carmine. Salmon, coral, apricot. All shifting, blending, and morphing their way east to west above me.           

            

What is it about a sunrise that moves me so? Certainly there is beauty, but I can catch such colors on the other side of day, after the sun slips behind the mountains. But a sunset, no matter how stunning, is quieter, an ethereal suggestion to turn inward. Sunrise invites a different response.

            

Light bursting out of darkness excites. All is reborn, a brilliance emanating from the snug womb of night.  It is as though each morning returns us to the season of spring. All is new, fresh. Possibilities abound, and we are urged to open to them.

            

During this early morning walk, I vow to do exactly that. Both my parents are now gone, my father recently so. And despite the loss, it feels like dawn, the dawn of a new era in my life. A clean start.

            

Who knows where this time will carry me~~or where any of us will be by nightfall on this very day? Everything awaits: joys and sorrows, events pleasant or not, unknowns longing to be experienced.

            

Many spiritual traditions tell us our task is to greet whatever comes with openness and a heart~felt “Yes!” My bird friends model this for me now as I turn toward home. Their voices have risen with the fiery sun into a joyous cacophony of “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

            

In the last few minutes, daylight has chased the vivid colors from the sky, leaving in their wake a cerulean blue dotted with white clouds of various shapes. But as I look closer, I see that labeling them “white” misses the mark, as there are subtle variations here as well. Cream. Ivory. Swirls of pearls. A hint of peach.

            

My eye is snagged by one particular formation. A few moments ago, it was part of an elongated cloud, but a strong westerly wind has set it free. It is snow white and cup~shaped, open end facing the day’s first rays. A celestial goblet, dipping into sunlight, scooping dawn.

            

That’s it! I have scooped dawn. It fills me, spills over my edges, and gives rise to this morning’s prayer...

May all our cups be filled. And may we raise them high with a resounding “Yes!” as Light overflows.

            

Namaste, my friends!

           

Loanne Marie

Judge Not

I sat unmoving on the sandstone rocks. Light was coming to the eastern sky, but all remained a deep stillness. The world hadn’t yet awakened.

And then it did. Slowly.

A lone goose honked insistently toward the southwest, passing almost directly overhead. Silence returned. Dogs from a distant yard mounted a barking frenzy lasting several minutes. Quiet came again. Tiny birds rustled the branches of a bush, a car drove down an adjacent street, a slight breeze moved past my ear. Each sound arose from and was followed by a sweet hush.

           

This silence was glorious and grace~filled. It flowed like an underground stream beneath each sound, every form, all thought, even the slight movements of my body.

           

This stillness was like air, too. Always present. Always available. Usually unnoticed.

I noticed it now. As the sounds of daytime busyness increased, each seemed a wave rising from a vast ocean and falling back again. The ocean was all, and I vowed to remain in contact with it throughout my day.

           

Fast forward five hours. I’m sitting in the steamiest pool at the hot springs irritated because the couple with whom I share the water won’t shut up. Believe me, I was well aware of the irony!

I tried to find the stillness beneath their too~loud voices, but I couldn’t. Why was it effortless while sitting on the rocks, but darn near impossible now, immersed in healing waters? I knew the answer. I had been snagged again, caught in a judgmental response that closed me off to all but itself.

           

I didn’t act, but let the searing mineral water cook me a bit. Gradually, something else arose. Judgment gave way to a clear~eyed discernment.

           

When I judge, I see simple wrongdoings. A deeper, fuller wisdom comes when I discern. Discernment may acknowledge the same facts, but its vision is broader, with a context that is more complex and, thus, truer. 

In this case, discernment agreed that, by speaking loudly and incessantly, this couple was violating one of the basic norms of hot springs etiquette. But it also saw that these folks meant no harm. Though in their 50s, their love was new and they were in the wrapped~up~in~each~other stage that made them unaware of anything else.

           

Discernment also highlighted my own harsh reaction. It urged against imposing myself on the situation in a way that, given my level of annoyance, would be awkward, hurtful and ultimately unsatisfying. Discernment accepted the learning this couple offered me. Rather than asserting myself on my surroundings, I was to allow my surroundings to work on me. And so I did.

           

Rather than indulge and thereby strengthen my judgmental tendencies, I chose instead to give my tolerance muscle some much needed exercise. I let my spa~mates’ need for words override my preference for quiet. Very soon after I made that choice, of course, my unwitting teachers stepped out of the pool, their work complete. As they padded away down the boardwalk, delicious silence returned.

           

Judgment raised to a higher frequency becomes discernment. Without the aggressive emotional charge, it is free to work in harmony with what is, finding the most helpful way to proceed. Unbound by duality, discernment sees the good within the bad and can sense the Oneness that transcends and infuses them both.

           

Which brings us back to that blessed silence I perceived so clearly earlier in the day. That silence which is here now as I type and now as you read.

           

Underground stream. Air. Vast ocean. Whatever the metaphor, it is right here, right now. Always.

Blessings to my fella drops of ocean!

Loanne Marie           

Those who regularly read these pages are acquainted with a certain Monica Wood, who often leaves comments here. I recently came across (without any help from Monnie, by the way!), a story she wrote for Oprah. A link to the online edition is fitting, as in it she honors a dear soul who discerns always and judges never. Here she is~~dear Betty.

Dawn

Bundled against the autumn chill, I walk up the hill to a grouping of large sandstone rocks rising in lovely swirling formations. The westerly wind is already stirring, so I find a protected alcove and position my blankets in that soft curve of hard rock.

Light is just now coming to the eastern sky. As I take my seat, vivid pink brightens the bottom of a single cloud, farther away than the others. This morning’s sky~~a layering of clouds within an otherwise clear expanse~~promises a lavish display of progressing light. The anticipation quickens my senses, yet I stay with each moment so as not to miss a single step in the process.

I settle into my breath and know that I do not breathe alone. Life is one grand inhale and exhale. Beings and galaxies come into existence and pass out of it again. Rocks rise up from the earth and are eroded back into dust. Tides ebb and they flow. Seasons move one to the other as Earth ambles along its elliptical path around the sun, sweeping to the furthest point before turning back again. Night follows day as day follows night.

And I have been given a front~row seat. As the earth rotates me toward the sun, the cirrus clouds high above grow salmon~colored, a backdrop to the cumulus below, whose gray has just now shifted toward purple.

A deer and her twins munch their way through the meager grass below me. My head turns of its own accord toward the bush that brushes my left shoulder. How can it grow here, in only a few cupfuls of dirt collected in a shallow dip of rock? As I look closer in the strengthening light, I notice what I have missed before~~the tiniest, most slender catkins I have ever seen! Less than an inch in length and thinner than a piece of yarn, they are this bush’s ultimate gift, an offering from deep within its genetic code. And I open to its teachings.

Life gives of itself so freely, so beautifully, so continuously. The sun’s warmth and the glory of its rising and setting, the magic of photosynthesis, the begetting of the next generation of flora and fauna from the one that comes before~~everywhere one looks, this reality shines out.

The fawns are nursing now, one on each side of their mama. High above them, pink walks its way westward, followed by a rich and brilliant orange which gradually dissolves into a simple golden light. From my rocky perch, the whole valley opens to me. Vast stretches glow golden in the angled sunlight, the occasional hillock and cluster of trees casting long shadowy fingers.

As I breathe it all in, I wonder what my exhale will be. Having received so much, what will I pass on?

A neighboring husky releases a series of ululating howls, her offering to the risen sun. As the last soulful note dies away, I gather my things and return home.

I prepare a bowl of oatmeal, add yoghurt, a sprinkling of nutty granola, and sweet cantaloupe chunks the color of the sky I’ve just seen. Placing my hands on either side of the bowl, I utter a silent blessing for these gifts. And I vow to transform the energy given me according to the deepening capacities of my own soul. I vow, also, to give back with the same generosity with which it has all come my way.

My actions, my thoughts, the choices I make in each moment~~these are my own slender catkins, my offering to life.

Blessings on all our catkins. May these fuzzy little flower clusters, in all their marvelous and varied manifestations, tickle our world pink!

Loanne Marie