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Meditating on the Beginning of a Day
Zen and the Art of Living/Being
By Wind Dancer
I was up before the sun today, as many days. That’s a consequence of having furkids that need to get out after a night in the house. They are good and they wake me, which is much better than a mess to clean up, although that happens at times too. Children are not perfect, be they of our kind or four footed but that is okay. We are, I am not perfect either. What messes might I be leaving that I do not even sense?
I open the back door and the dogs charge out. Outside it is cold, crackling and bright but so cold. This is strange to me, a desert person, maybe at one time a denizen of misty-mild and moist places but not a world of ice and snow. Never that; it is alien to me but still special as a part of All. I will learn it and honor it as well.
I heat a cup of coffee and settle into my favorite chair which faces southwest to the big window that offers a view of the Front Range—a huge bulk of mountains dominating the scene. The first rays of the rising sun touch the top of the peak, gilding and washing it with pale rose on the snow. Slowly but with total steadiness the glow descends, down and down—no lines or pauses. I cannot quite see the movement but day arrives, inexorably.
Finally the first hint of that glow comes in through the east facing window at my back. I turn and see the first tiny arc of the sun’s face as it slips over the line of roofs and trees behind my house. Within an instant it is too bright, too fierce for my eyes. Like the face of Godde it is greater and more awesome than we can behold and accept. Our eyes cannot tolerate the brilliance. I shut them but I can still feel the warmth on my skin, a gentle pressure.
That it comes so strong across vast miles of space and time is amazing, awes me. It seems a miracle and a wonder. I visualize an immense number of infinitesimal gems of heat-light in every color –wave lengths of all energies--pouring over me. I can feel them as they slide between the atoms of my skin to warm me. My internal battery begins to recharge with this influx of energy. A new day starts. I am awed, grateful, amazed, energized, empowered, humbled—a jumble of feelings and impressions that come too fast and forcefully to be separated and analyzed and sorted. Maybe that is right and proper. Sometimes it is good just to feel and be but not think.
Thank you Sun, for your light and life and the animation and activation you give with each coming into my world. My world is small, just a fragment of Your World, but it is all I see and feel and know. You create it anew with each day and maybe me as well. Do I exist only as a shadow in the dark times? I do not know but now I live and move and go forth again. Thank you for this day, this time, this chance to observe and honor and appreciate You as the Face and Force of The One who is All. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of it, one atom in this incredible vast Entity that is Creation. I am not alone for I am part of that All and in some ways it is even part of me.
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