NATE MORELL celebrates the healing beauty of the dawn and a beautiful sunrise. Through this connection with nature, he also discovers the purpose of our human existence.
It was 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning as I walked my dog next to the Mill Pond. It was cool and dark with the smell of pine trees and fallen leaves in the air, about an hour before sunrise. My photographer friend Susan calls this the “magic hour,” because there is a beauty and a stillness to the world only experienced during this wondrous moment. The first light of the day began to appear over the pond and along the tree-lined horizon. Within minutes, streaks of electric pink and tangerine orange spread across the sky and bounced off the high, cool, deep, fluffy, purple clouds.
The entire ecosystem seemed to be alive and celebrating the coming of the new day. The fish were jumping from the water, the hawks and ducks were calling out, quacking, and screeching, and my pup and I were taking it in, honoring the dawn along with the world, absorbing it all, every precious and sacred moment.
In her autobiography, Wild, Cheryl Strayed quoted her mom as saying, “There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it. … Put yourself in the way of beauty.” That quote resonated deeply within my heart and stayed with me, and so there I was, showing up with my dog “in the way of beauty.”
As I continued walking next to the pond, I realized that I was experiencing healing from nature. This sunrise felt like an antidote to the painful, gripping, pressured, complex, anxiety-producing, and Covid-exhausting thoughts and emotions that had entered my life through the tiny cracks of the heart over the last eighteen months. These complexities had built up, and until they were either felt or released, I would break down again. Here, I experienced nature as big enough to hold all my emotional pain, maybe even the whole world’s pain, and I smiled and let go of trying to control everything. Nature generously received it all.
I experienced nature as big enough to hold
all my
emotional pain,
maybe even the
whole world’s pain, and I smiled and let go of
trying
to control everything.
Nature generously received it all.
The water on the lake was perfectly still. As the sun rose higher in the sky, an unbelievable and overwhelming golden yellow-orange warmth consumed the sky and reflected perfectly off the calm clear water, which doubled the beauty of the sunrise. I thought to myself, “What could I possibly create that could match even one percent of the exquisiteness of this moment?” It was all so perfect and freely available; all I had to do was show up and bask in the light. How ridiculously lucky was I to be alive? I felt joy for the grace of attending mother nature’s church, and sadness because my dog and I were the only ones bearing witness. What could be more important than this?
We walked along the water’s edge and soaked in nature’s gifts. I had the urge to meditate and realized that in five minutes a group session would start on Zoom. I had a foldable chair and towel in the car, so I gathered everything I needed and set up next to the pond under the pine trees. I had not consciously packed my meditation things, but they were there, ready for me.
I activated the Zoom link and began by relaxing my toes, moving upward, and letting go of tension in my body, all the way to the top of my head. I felt the complexities and stress release from my physical body, especially from my shoulders, jaw, forehead, and neck. As my body released the stored stress and trauma within, I experienced a release of the weight of the world. I was then left feeling light and spacious.
I became aware of my heart, and of something sacred, precious, and intangible within the heart. I took a chance and surrendered to a place of limitless love and depth. I went deeper and deeper, letting go, and falling into love. I experienced a brief wave of fear, realizing I may never come back, but then trusting that the doorway in my heart was creating and supporting this moment. I let go completely.
I became aware of my heart,
and of something sacred,
precious, and
intangible
within the heart. I took a chance and surrendered
to a
place of limitless love and depth.
I went deeper and deeper, letting
go,
and falling into love.
And then a movement into surrender, merged and absorbed in love. “I” was nowhere, and yet somehow still intricately woven into the depths of everything. The experience may have lasted one second or a million years – time had stopped; being “me” had stopped. The peace of the Center, the root of the root, the actors dropping away and the truth shining so brightly that it burnt away anything that was not Reality. Words, beliefs, language, culture, gender, fear, separateness, desire, aversion all stopped. Breathing and the experience of a beating heart stopped, as if a “drop of clear water was dropped into the ocean,”1 except this ocean was infinite love, and the drop of water was the soul.
At some point, awareness of “self” with a physical body, a social security number, a job, and a family loosely reformed. Oh my gosh, everything I will ever need is already within me! That is the point of this life. There is nothing to think through or figure out. It is not a secret written in Sanskrit or locked within the Da Vinci code. It is not some huge problem that needs to be solved to earn my way to salvation. It is an experience that is available to us here and now, and the pathway is through our hearts. We are here to realize the Source for ourselves. How pure, simple, and beautiful. It was there all along and I had completely missed it.
To have experienced this revelation and taken it in was mind-blowing. The silliness of spending my life chasing things I desire, and avoiding things I don’t desire, hurting others out of fear or to protect myself, worrying about what other people think about me, acquiring expensive cars and clothes, relationship dramas, having a respectable social media presence, FOMO, job stress, politics, saving the world, external recognition, degrees, achieving status, and making my family proud seemed unspeakably off the mark. It is not that these things are bad; but making them the purpose of my life is deeply misguided.
I will never achieve deep and lasting happiness through the pursuit of external things. Instead, all I have to do is show up and surrender to the unfathomable beauty in the essence and depth of the heart. It has been said, “Love is always offered and never forced,” so it comes down to that really. This entire universe is just one big offering of love, and all we need to do is show up and accept it. That’s all.
1 Swami Vivekananda
Nate Morell
