The sweet surprise of morning

Physically, the sun comes up every day. It has been coming up every day for a long, long time - and I expect it will continue coming up for some time yet into the future. But today the sun came up in a different way for me - internally. And, like the physical sun, it filled my world with light.

This last few days have been filled with long hours of darkness, self-doubt and confusion. I seemed to be living in a cave, because in every direction I found only walls - no windows, and certainly no doorways. One by one the options of new job opportunities, new career ventures, new connections for a new life - have been closing unexpectedly. Even the ones that seemed so sure, so certain. One by one each potential has become a wall.

I credit myself with taking one small wise action, however. I used to bloody myself quite regularly, butting my head against the walls that stood in my way. This time, as soon as I identified that it was actually a wall before me, I stopped. Immediately. I quit beating my head against the walls this time. I've found that when there is a wall, you search around for a doorway. And when you find no doorway, you sit down, make yourself comfortable, and rest a bit.

So that's what I did. At 3:00 am, when the last call came in from the "really big company" in the UK - the last rejection (or so it seemed to me then) - I sat down, right on the floor, and just stayed there for awhile. The only light there was came from the very small lamp I'd turned on beside the phone. Everything else was dark. In summer, morning comes early, true, but at 3:15 am it would still be hours yet before dawn. And daybreak would have to wait even longer this morning, because the storm clouds of the evening before lingered still, showing no signs of clearing anytime soon.

So I sat.

And sat. It seemed the only thing to do.

I found myself settling a bit, finally, and breathing. I think it was the first time I've ever really noticed that - just my own breathing. It's really quite rhythmic - comforting in an odd sort of way. At least it was for me.

There I sat. My surroundings faded, even my body faded from my awareness. My worries became as nothing. They just didn't matter anymore.

Then suddenly, I started remembering things I'd not thought of for years. Like, when I was five years old and I held a common stick in my hand, a twig from the tree top above me, and wondered what it would be like to be part of something as magnificent as a tree. And when I lay in my bed, sick with the flu, when I was 12 amazed yet comforted to feel my grandfather's hand pushing my sweaty hair off my forehead gently, with his rough hands. (My grandfather had died the year before, when I was 11.) A flood of memories and thoughts streamed through my mind like a movie - but the best kind of movie - the kind that leaves you full of awe and wonder, never to be the same again.

I don't know how long I sat there. I lost all sense of time. All I know is that suddenly it was morning. Bright, intense, and glorious. And it began inside. The brightness of hope, I think I want to call it. It's hard to put it into words actually. There are no words I can discover that accurately describe that which is undescribable by anything other than a shout of joy from the core of my being. It sounds funny to myself having those words come to my mind, let alone putting them down in writing. I" don't talk that way. But then, I feel, unquestionably, that that somehow that the "I" that I was is not the same anymore. That "I" is gone - transformed, no, transmuted, forever - changed into something better, something greater, than I could ever have achieved by myself alone.

And then I noticed my breathing. Deep, powerful, filling me in a way I've never experienced before, to my recollection. Odd. I felt in that moment that I'd never truly breathed before, not really. In that moment I was the sky, the ocean, and all creation. And though I had no physical roots, nor leaves, nor trunk - I was also the tree that I had yearned to know as a young boy.

I had no idea how long it had been light, but I suddenly noticed it was. Sunlight streamed through the breaking clouds, dark no longer. Rays of sun fell across my legs, and my hands, and the floor. I felt as if I were sitting in the middle of a pool of light, and that the sunbeams were individually personalized for me, just for me.

I would have stayed there forever, but "nature called" and I slowly moved my body to a standing position. I felt somewhat stiff from inaction, but filled with new strength at the same time. I glanced at the clock, amazed. It was 10:32 am.

Circumstances are the same. As I look at my options, there are still walls where there had been doors and windows before. But the cave is dark no longer. In fact, it is streaming with light. I still don't know which direction to go, but somehow I know now that if I pay attention, the perfect path will open before me.

It will be interesting to see where it leads.