Routines

There were no clouds this morning. It was a standard desert sunrise. In fact, I happened to be up very early this morning and watched the sun rise from complete darkness. The sky turned blue first before any reds or oranges showed up. Then it was a pretty standard sunrise. Routine.

Routines are useful. They give order to our world. They help us focus when we lack a little motivation. They help propel us to get things done. They give us certainty. However, on the other hand, they can give way to complacency. They can hinder your growth if you aren't conscious. As with balance, routines should be treated as dynamic systems. There is a fine line between being a useful mechanism in your life and being the very thing that prevents your evolution. Be mindful of your routines.

Paradoxes

This morning's sunrise was so breathtaking. There seemed to be a golden paintbrush touching every single thing in the sky. It was really golden with a touch of pink. I found myself staring at the brightest part of the colour, the place where the golden light was most intense. When I looked away there were dark spots where the light had been. That got me thinking about paradoxes.

Do you ever notice that in order to describe something accurately you often need to use it's complete opposite as a reference point? Such is the power of paradox. In order to make sense of one thing, you need to be able to contemplate the flip side. In the case of light and dark, the brightest light stands out in the darkest night. Think of a brilliant dark night sky and the gazillions of stars that pepper throughout the darkness. They are only visible because it is so dark. You can't even see a minute fraction of those same stars when you are in a brightly lit city at night. Paradoxically, it is the darkness that allows you to differentiate the light. But you don't need to get rid of the darkness to see the light, you only need to bring light to the darkness. The metaphor is powerful. You don't need to get rid of those things, people or events that weigh you down, you only need to bring your own light to the situation and you may very well find the juxtaposition quite powerful.

Choices

This morning's sunrise was fiery red. It burst over the horizon in a blaze. In fact, a few minutes prior to the actual sunrise was nothing out of the ordinary. Then, all of a sudden it burst forth. It was almost as if the sun made a last minute choice to do this. Then, as quickly as it burst, it was over again. A few minutes of gorgeousness was all I got.

Then, on my walk this morning, I ran into the same older gentlemen out walking his little wee dog. I've been running into this guy most of the mornings. He's so jolly and he kind of looks like Santa Claus (in a pair of shorts because it is after all almost 100 degrees in the morning). His greetings are highly energetic and enthusiastic. My mood is always lifted after I talk to him. Then, I realized that we are both making choices. We are both choosing to interact with each other at this high vibration of joy and enthusiasm. It shapes my day completely. It also brings my awareness back to the fact my experience is my choice. Always. A choice.

Fresh New Day

The sun came up again today. I can't say I'm surprised. I was pretty much expecting it. Well, I was actually 100% expecting it to come up today. However, in a few hours there will be a total solar eclipse in the southern hemisphere. It will be seen by very few people but it will happen nonetheless. Can you imagine what it must have been like in the long ago past when there was a solar eclipse in the middle of the day and the people had no understanding of how the solar system worked? They must have been frightened out of their boots when darkness fell across their land for no apparent reason. Their fear, of course, springing their lack of understanding of the big picture.

Hmmm, that principle couldn't still arise today, could it? What if our negative emotions were simply the result of a lack of understanding or lack of ability to see the whole picture? What if every negative emotion could be transformed with a change of context or perspective? It couldn't be THAT easy. Or could it? By the way, I mean EVERY negative emotion, not just the easy ones. Imagine a time in the distant future when we speak of our understanding of emotions in the same way that we speak of understanding solar eclipses and the like. Imagine the freedom. It's always an issue of perspective.

Glitches

We were back to an almost picture-perfect sunrise this morning. There were just a few glitches in the sky preventing complete clarity. They didn't provide enough resistance to really alter the sunrise but they did add enough differences to make it interesting.

There have been a number of "glitches" in my life lately. I've had miscellaneous challenges with telecommunications, scheduling and mail delivery; an usually high number of these types of challenges. Then, it dawned on me. There will be a total solar eclipse tomorrow. There must be an energetic jam up in the air waves wreaking havoc in the lives of many organized people. It's amazing how that little reframe changed my entire outlook. I wasn't nearly as upset with all of little stupid things that were going wrong when I considered this new context. That's the power of reframing any situation. You can literally let go of your problem if you can find another meaning or another context where it all makes sense. The tension will vanish immediately.

Angels in the Desert

It was such an usual sunrise for the desert. It was almost overcast. This is quite bizarre for the middle of summer. At first the sun was a fiery red glow behind a thin veil of cloud. But as it started to rise, the light from the sun began to shoot out from underneath the clouds. It reached out in all direction in a golden spray of light. I couldn't help but think of my angel story. There must have been a super-charged flood of angels given the rarity of clouds at sunrise out here.

The whole morning was filled with breathtaking vistas. It was the difference in light cast a new view on the whole scene. The light went from full brightness to complete disappearance to varying degrees of filtered light. Every time the light changed, the scenery changed completely. Think of the powerful metaphor here. Each one of us is light. We have the capacity to allow our light to shine fully or to close down completely essentially blocking out our light. These are two extremes that are few and far between. What is more usual however for people is to be somewhere in the middle, allowing a partial expression of their light filtered through their resistance. It's neither bad nor good. Rather, it's just the way it is. There is so much variance to this filtered light that every time there is even the slightest shift in who we are then the whole landscape of our existence changes completely.

Slight Changes

The reason why I have not been taking pictures every morning of the desert sunrise is that it is usually identical each day. However, this morning there was some rare cloud on the horizon. It made for a beautifully spectacular sunrise which filled the sky with gold, orange, purple and blue. It was a small change that made a huge difference. I sat on my balcony and just watched it unfold.

I started thinking about how it is usually the small changes that make the biggest difference in our lives. We are all out there looking for the BIG idea, the breakthrough, the magic pill that will solve all of our problems. But I am constantly reminded that it is usually the culmination of the little things that causes a shift. It may appear to be instantaneous but it is often the result of a series of slight changes versus one big one. Therefore I try to make small changes every day. This morning I took a walk in a completely different direction. I came across something that made me laugh along the way. Laughter is good and it usually puts me in a more powerful and positive state for the day. This positive state was made possible by the slight change of walking somewhere else. Who knows where it will lead but I can tell one thing for sure - it wouldn't have been possible without making the slight change.