Watch the Sunrise

Watch the Sunrise

ADVICE ON THE VIDEO ABOVE: Do not watch this if you are trying to go to sleep.

Haleakalā in Hawaiian means ‘House of the Sun’. It is the most abruptly-rising mountain in the world, the exposed peak of a behemoth that begins at the floor of the Pacific Ocean and then rises, vertiginously, breaking sea-level and soaring 10,000 feet. Maui, the Demi-God, lassoed the sun from the summit of Haleakalā. To watch the sunrise from the top of Haleakalā, which you should do once in your lifetime at least, requires that you rise sometime between 2 and 3 am, because you’ll need to arrive at the gates to the National Park by 4 am, to make it through the crawling traffic.

There are many traditional and ancestral cultures that rose, and that rise each morning to greet the Sun. It makes sense. The Life-Giver, he is. To awaken, to kneel, to greet and behold the sunrise. Long before the actual rise of the Sun begins the dawn chorus, the birds rising early to greet the day. Singing their praises. There is a long transition between night and morning, this liminal space, often with the Dawn star, Venus, low on the horizon. Before the light has broken the plane of the horizon, while it is yet growing lighter. It is perhaps my favorite time of day. To be outside, on the land, to watch the sunrise…no matter how many times you see it, it is always new. The colors in the sky before dawn are impossible to imagine–the most brilliant paints in the world do not do them justice. And then the moment the Sun breaks the horizon line, it is always breath-taking.

Standing on top of Haleakala, at 10,000 feet–the temperature at the summit of the mountain near freezing even when the temperature at the base is in the nineties, the wind blasting you… It is called the House of the Sun for a reason and it is no joke. It is a sacred mountain. Here the light of the Sun enters you, blasts through you. Pours down into your molecules, like drinking from a firehose of light.

I have been told by wise people that if a person is feeling hopeless, one of the best antidotes in the world is to go out and watch the sunrise. It brings, each morning, the force of renewal, the force of Life itself. Watching the light of the Sun break over the world is a miracle, each and every time. It is the celestial egg yolk cracking across the bowl of sky: a celebration, the Source itself.