The stained glass tries to compete but fails to overtake the scene. The vase too is spectacular as is the old rough hewn window ledge. The vista outside the window takes nearly 5 minutes before it is noticed though the mountains are lovely.
But those flowers. That blue atop green stems. The color of the Aegean. The color of an infant’s newborn eyes. The color of my love for you.
Shakespeare would have composed a sonnet. Byron an ode. I am too close to my dreams.
I have but these few words that have escaped the remnants of sleep.
Dawn is the sacred hour. We move from one world to the next accompanied by a dramatic lighting of this world.
Old Window in Finland by Helena Turpeinen, poster to View From My Window Facebook group
It wasn’t until my late 40s I was able to appreciate or regularly meet the dawn. If my sleep schedule ever regulates, I will miss these holy hours. I wake in the dark and cast off the stories my psyche told me while asleep and head for my beloved roll-top desk.
Dependent on the time of year, it could be some time before the dawning or just minutes.
But as I write the stories and sip coffee in silence, I glance over my shoulder through the atrium doors to look for the first arc of light.
It usually begins as a soft peachy pink rising with the fog over the hills and peeking through the trees. Dependent on weather and time of year, the color will sometimes intensify, sometimes wane, but always is a hearkening.
Here we are again. We made it to another day.
The silence is important.
Soon, the birds will start and the world will begin its hustle, but for a few minutes it’s just light and the creation of a new day, the creation of a new story to be told. Color on the silhouettes of the mountains bring me such contentment.
In twelve days, I will be on the shore of Lake Okeechobee in Florida. I’ve never been there before but I’ve seen sunset photos–another sacred part of the day. I am eager to nestle with my lover before leaving our bed to sit on the dock with my mug of coffee and journal. It won’t be silent – the lapping of the tide should, will, create its own sounds of peace. I am eager to see the Spanish moss hanging from the trees light up as the sun begins it ritual.
I’m sure I will photograph the scene in order to remember it, but I hope it imprints on my heart.
This is the sacred hour. Rejoice in the silence and witness the light. Turn to a new page and tell the story.
The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you are 100% healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience. There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride. —
Pema Chodron.
Well. Damn.
Pema Chodron says that finally getting it together is death. So, why am I juggling 10,000 things and killing myself to keep them from falling? I don’t want to die.
She also says that the essence of life is that’s it’s challenging. Ah. I have a very lively life then. She closes with, “There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride.”
Hmmmm. I think I deserve a smooth ride. I don’t think the human condition should be one of struggles and challenges. I don’t think having one’s ducks in a row is death. Respectfully, Miss Pema, I disagree.
The essence of life is the quiet moments. The big ones – holding your newborn for the first time or looking into your partner’s eyes when you say I love you. The small ones – those all-too-brief moments on the zafu with the Tibetan prayer beads in hand where you can watch your thoughts like giant soap bubbles pop and dissipate or while sitting on the seashore admiring the enormity of all creation. The essence of life is the cup of coffee on the deck at sunrise in summertime. Sandaled feet, but sweatered arms – to keep the morning dew from chilling.
Sometimes life is sweet. And sometimes it is bitter. Further, sometimes it is Nirvana, and sometimes it is Hades. I don’t think The Creator breathed life into us to be constantly nauseated on a roller coaster of sweet and bitter. Afraid.
No, we are told again and again by all the great sages, Pema aside, Be ye not afraid.
The bitter will be there, yes that’s true. It’s our job to rise above it and smooth it out. To minimize the discord, to work against injustice, to celebrate peace, birthdays, and small fresh-sprouted seedlings. Life is a teeming of beginnings. Yes, and endings. But the endings too should be quiet and expansive — an ushering into the next.
When the body tenses, we lose our equanimity and forget our purpose by thrusting ourselves into fight or flight. When we relax, open up, we gain connection with the human condition and aren’t fighting against it, but working to maximize potential.
Smooth out those imperfections. Work for peace. Drink heavily from the chalice of life. We are here now and that is a great miracle and a tantalizing mystery. Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think. Assert yourself. You are a reborn star.
I long for unexpected angles and curves, passages that take me to vistas unimagined. I want us to be a couple on a rue in Paris, a calle in Barcelona, an alley in Istanbul. Walking where feet have trod for hundreds and hundreds of years – not just a couple of centuries. I want to curl up with you in a glass igloo in Norway and watch the northern lights. I want to hold your hand in a bure in Fiji, the thatch rustling0 in the ocean breeze.
I want architecture that begs for our attention and the camera’s lens. Adobe, stucco, marble. People who walk differently and speak in a tongue I can’t understand. I want to eat food I’ve never had in Afghanistan, drink liqueurs with the locals in Greece, and witness the traumatic running of the bulls. I want to struggle with the language when asking a stranger to take our photo. Though we are disheveled and jet-lagged, you will put your arm around me and we will smile for the camera capturing our joy in the moment.
W. Va. Fur and Root 