I wake up,
Not fully rested,
The weight of my life heavy on my chest.
My choices,
My story,
The good and the bad.
This morning,
I'm in a different part of the forest,
A new trail,
A new beach.
I rub my eyes as my car pulls up to the trailhead.
I fill my lungs with the perfume of the late summer forest,
The salt air soothing to my soul.
My head begins to clear.
My flashlight is stark and bright among the trees before the dawn,
The cool moist air against my face,
The laughing of some goats at the mirth of the chirping birds on a nearby farm,
The trickle of a stream under a bridge in the darkness,
The root that seemed to reach out and catch my shoe as I passed.
I am now fully present in this space.
I smile at the birds flitting about on the path and greet the squirrels hopping from branch to branch,
The leaves illuminated by the pink glow to the east.
The trees move aside to make room for the rocky bluff ahead and the sky above changing from dark ink to pastels.
The moon takes its cue and fades into the morning light.
Here is my spot,
A little rock bench created by glacial erosion and time.
The horizon becomes golden,
A gentle breeze against my face.
On a distant highway,
A motorcycle opens its throttle on its way to somewhere,
To nowhere.
See those fighting over something in the water below and now I let go.
The weight on my chest has become imperceptible,
A memory.
My mind is quiet,
Observant as opposed to conversant with itself.
I fix my eyes on the eastern horizon,
The red morning sun making its slow entrance into the day,
Creating a fiery dance of light on the water.
I let the gratitude flow.
Thank you,
Dear sun,
For your light,
Your warmth,
Your energy.
Without you,
I would not be.
None of this would be.
No life,
Just a dark rock hurtling through space.
Thank you for waking up Gaia,
Our Mother Earth,
For warming her days and helping her blossom into vibrant life.
Thank you,
Sun,
I receive you.
I continue to gaze into the sun,
Filled with peace,
Gratitude,
And love.
Love for all that is.
Love for all that I am.
Love for knowing.
Love for not knowing.
I have no worries here.
No anxiety.
No fear.
The only thing that matters is this moment.
Right now.
Right here.
Only me and the sun.
I sit upon Gaia and witness this magnificent creation as it unfolds before me.
It is all that matters.
It is all that has ever mattered.
Being,
Not doing.
The sun.
The water.
The breeze.
The trees.
All remind me of my own magnificence.
I was born from this magnificent creation.
I am part of it.
I am it.
Each day my ritual is similar,
Not the same.
But I connect.
I connect with all that is.
I connect with the now.
The present moment.
The most important moment.
Because it is the only place that I experience anything.
As I sit,
I feel the firmness of the earth below me.
I feel the expanse of the universe around me.
Looking through the lens of our local star.
Our magnificent sun.
I am humbled by my own minuscule physical size in this vast,
Unfathomable universe.
But empowered by the expanse of my own consciousness,
Encompassing all that is.
I am a part of creation.
The stars and planets in this galaxy,
And every galaxy.
I am made up of the very same elements,
Energies,
And frequencies of it all.
The atoms in my body are the very atoms that thrust forth from the Big Bang that started this iteration of all that we know.
I am part of this universe.
The universe is part of me.
I am quantum entangled with all that there is.
All that there ever was.
And all that will ever be.
From this perspective I realize there are no problems in my life.
Only experiences.
And everything that happens,
Happens for me.
Not to me.
This moment is a gift.
A gift of what is as it is in this moment.
To learn from.
To grow from.
I realize that in order for me to experience the light from this sun,
I must know darkness.
For me to feel the fullness of love,
I must know loss.
For me to have courage,
I must know fear.
To appreciate my community,
I must know loneliness.
The sun continues to rise in the sky.
My time gazing into it has come to an end.
My day is lighter,
Brighter.
My entire being is filled with peace.
With a calm energy of being.
The forest is aglow with the morning sun.
The birds sing their joyous tribute to this moment.
The trees,
Fragrant and alive with vitality.
Looking down at me with approval as I make my way back out of the forest.
This peace I will take with me throughout this day.
My heart is more open to recognizing moments of joy,
Bliss,
And happiness.
And feeling through them fully.
My biggest reward though,
Is the peace I feel deep within.
You too can create this experience for yourself.
You don't need a beach or a forest.
You can create your own grounding ritual.
Maybe it's at night with the moon and the stars.
Or standing in the rain.
It could be sitting in the grass in the backyard.
Or walking down your street.
Witness what is.
Express gratitude for what is.
Connect with whatever nature you can see.
The sky above you.
A weed growing from a crack in the sidewalk downtown.
Or a crow scavenging for food.
If you can spend time in nature,
You will experience a remembrance.
We are from nature.
Nature is our home.
When we connect with nature,
We connect with peace.
The more we connect with peace,
The more we can hold on to it in our busy lives.
