What We Need Is Here

As the days grow shorter here in the northern hemisphere, getting out of bed by five-thirty gets a little harder even as it allows me to bask in the dawn. At that hour it’s pitch dark outside- the sky is black, the street lights are shining. By the time I make tea and sit down to do my practise of prayer and meditation, the sky is just beginning to edge into indigo.

The balcony doors of my small apartment face east, so as I send my prayers out- calling on the visible and invisible faces of the Sacred Mystery, and holding the needs of myself, others and the world in my heart- I watch the gradual transformation of the sky. And every time- every single time- watching the growing light fills me with awareness of the gift of the day.

Often, if the sky is cloudless, I will pause and allow the sun to touch me and pierce me as it crests the horizon in front of me. For me, doing this- being present at dawn- cracks me open, fills me with awareness of the overwhelming beauty of being given a life here on this spectacular planet.

One morning, filled with gratitude for how the dawn had returned me to my centre and renewed my commitment to living the day with an open heart, I thought, “I wish I could be touched by the energy of dawn throughout the day.”

And immediately the thought arose: “It’s always dawn somewhere on the planet.”

I know this is a fairly obvious fact when we think about it: as the planet turns the horizon is continuously shifting and allowing sunlight to flood over a new area of the earth’s surface. But I hadn’t thought about it this way. It’s equally true that at any moment, somewhere on the planet it is dusk, noon, midnight.

And I thought of how the energy of these times- times when, according to the shamanic tradition with which I am familiar, the “crack between the worlds” is open so we can access a broader, deeper perception of reality- is truly available somewhere on the planet in every minute, day or night. And because we are always connected to, interwoven with all life on this planet, with a little focus and imagination we can feel our way into the renewal of dawn, the softening of dusk, the dreaming of midnight, or the clarity of noon anywhere at any time.

This is the magic of the Sacred Wholeness in which we participate and of which we are made. It is the gift of imagination combined with the reality of living as embodied souls/ensouled bodies.

Aware of just a fraction of this magnificence I am filled with gratitude.

Oriah © 2013