Fourth Form of Madness

For a long time I have been in love with the sunrise.  There is nothing like being there and present when the new day breaks.  Often I practice early in the morning.  At first this was so I could fit in a daily practice in my usually busy and scheduled day.  It wasn’t long before I fell in love with special time of day and even when I wake and my warm bed tries to lure me with the promise of extra hours of slumber, I remember the beauty of the still, often crisp morning with the sounds of birds singing for their many gods.  It is not hard then to rise, to step on my mat and fall into the mornings sacred silent that is pregnant with all the mysteries of life.

I’ve admired sunsets but never really found myself with much time to sit in their beauty and magic.  That was until recently on a holiday to Fiji.  At the place we were staying, high above on the tallest hill was a beautiful bar that had panoramic windows.  To get to the bar, you had to take a golf cart up the windy road to the top.  From there you had to climb a set of stairs until you were closer to the sky.  The first time my husband and I went to the bar to watch the sunset we thought it was going to be full with people and that we might be lucky to get a seat at one of the windows with her beautiful panoramic views to the ocean and the sky.  We were wrong.

There was one other couple there, already seated in the best window seat right in front of the sun setting.  My husband and I were stunned.  We were sure that this would be packed for the majestic show that nature then proceeded to unfold in front of our eyes.  All the colours in the spectrum danced before our eyes and hearts and the silence and the reverie of the beauty in front of us, was more spiritual than most places I have been.

The second time we went to view the sunset on our visit, we got there a little earlier.  We secured the sunset viewing seat.  It wasn’t hard.  We were the only ones in the bar.  Again we were stunned at to why it was so empty?  Here I would like to digress just a little.  A long time ago, I sat down next to a random gentleman on a train journey home one night.  He was of Spanish decent and we quite naturally struck up a deeply philosophical conversation about whether people were innately good or whether they learnt to be good (or bad).  He argued that people were innately good and I argued that we learned either to be good or bad.

I always think back to that conversation as it now seems odd to me that such a conversation was had on a train, usually they are somber, closed off and isolated places and this conversation was a lively, connected exchange.  We both enjoyed the exchange of the ideas and I appreciated many points of his argument. Secretly I think my heart wanted with all it’s might to believe what he was saying but my stubborn, book learning brain wouldn’t concede defeat at this point.  When he got off at his stop, he thanked me for the conversation and for the first time introduced himself.  His name was Spanish and a name I had never heard and when I asked him what it meant he replied “It means where the sky meets the sea”.  I loved this meaning.  Then he turned to leave the train but not before imparting a departing closing statement.  “How do you know that we aren’t all innately good and that whatever we learn is just further layers on top that cloud or highlight that goodness?”.  The truth was I could never truly know that through the intellectual vehicle I was using to argue with.

Back in front of that window in Fiji that second night at the bar, in the majestic silence surrounding us and the orange glow enveloping us in her soft and constant love.  I stood up so that I could see every glorious part of the magnificent sunset that unfolded in front of me.  The sky was on fire with the suns closing glory, the water was blue and deep and her waves softly lapped the shores with a reassuring rhythm of life.  Wispy, long fingers of the billowy, soft orange clouds started to slowly make their way down to touch the ocean until it seemed like the sky and ocean were truly connected, not just at the horizon but other places as well.  There as I stood being bathed in absolute beauty, I remembered the words that my Spanish train buddy spoke that night as he departed and I simply understood on a really deep level that we were all innately good.  It was then that I realised my face was soaked in silent tears. Big salty tears of release and surrender.  But a big dopey smile was also all over my face as I grinned with a tear soaked face into the undeniable, heartbreaking beauty that we all innately are.