the sky

this week i volunteered to be a wake-up caller. this invoves awakening at 5:15 and singing to the rest of the community to rise them from their slumbers. so far i have gifted them with shania twain, cat stevens and "la bamba"; a powerful combination.

there is something profoundly unique about being the only one walking around under the stars before the sun has even touched the horizon with warmth. the stars shine brighter, the silence is purer and as Reif Larsen wrote:

"outside, there was that predawn kind of clarity, where the momentum of living has not quite captured the day. the air was not filled with conversation or thought bubbles or laughter or sidelong glances. everyone was sleeping, all their ideas and hopes and hidden agendas entangled in the dream world, leaving this world clear and crisp and cold as a bottle of milk in the fridge"

yogic tradition dictates starting your practice in the calm hours before dawn; this is the time when Brahman is prevalent in the air - Brahman being the univeral spirit, the origin and support of the universe. i haven't meditated this early yet, but after a week of breathing in the serene atmosphere i can see the potential benefits and why so many choose to let their minds float freely with the crisp breeze.

professor John S. Hoyland shares with us his beautiful words on this moment when "the veil between the things that are seen and the things that are unseen becomes so thin as to interpose scarcely any barrier at all between the eternal beauty and truth and the soul which would comprehend them".

so here's to breath-taking skies and the power of Brahman.