I I think I jumped the gun with posting about sunsets!!!! Here are 4 pictures of the sun setting over lake Ontario as seen from Western NY on the summer solstice in 2014. In the last picture, the black dots in the sky are birds, not stuff on the lens!
We now begin inching our way from the longest day of sunlight to the shortest 6 months from now.
Photo I took of the sun setting over Lake Ontario.
There seems to be something about sunsets that attract people in general. There also seems to something a little bit more alluring about watching the sun set over a horizon. For me, that horizon is generally over water. For others it might be over a desert or slipping behind a particular mountain range.
While I was studying in California, I noted that at sunset I would often stand on the beach watching the sun set and there would be dozens of other people doing the same thing. All simply standing and looking in the direction of the sun as it set. We were all just dark figures against the light of the setting sun. As the last sliver of the sun disappeared, these figures would slowly leave the beach. It felt as if we were all engaged in some sort of ritual.
When I spend time at a cottage on the shores of Lake Ontario, I nearly always take time to sit and watch the sunset. I took this photo on June 15, 2014. I was reflecting on how, by the end of summer, the sun will appear to set behind the tree on the left side of the photo. This set me to thinking about all the things I know about the tilt of the earth on it’s axis and how the daily hours of sunshine is increasing, but will soon begin to decrease after the summer solstice. At this time of year, the sun does not set until nearly 9pm in this particular place. Six months from now it will set around 4pm.
This set me off on a reflection of the cycles we live out in our lifetime. I am not sure there is any part of our life that is not impacted by cycles. But this particular cycle of lightness and darkness is something we experience every 24 hours. As I sit here this evening after the sun has set, I am aware that I sit here with artificial light to dispel the darkness.
I wonder what impact it has on our individual psyche, this being out of sync with the rhythm of light and dark in the place in which we live. What is the result of soul living within us being out of sync with soul around us?
There is much to speculate about the impact of the denial of darkness. But for now, I consider the simple experience of watching the sun set. There is something about this daily experience that reminds me that I am a part of something that is much larger than I am, much larger than all of us put together. In fact, it makes me ponder the idea that there is a reality that is so vast that there is no “I” of which to be aware. There is something about the ritual setting of the sun that raises my consciousness of the idea that despite all that divides us there is this single daily event that unites us.
Photo I took of the sun setting in Carpinteria, California.
I have been musing over the visit with the Great Blue Herons this past weekend. Today, I notice that I feel a tug. A tug toward being freed from the tethers of this earth. How I wish to be free from what holds me here!
Perhaps part of today’s thoughts arise from the experience of having had some money stolen from the inner-city store front I help run. We exist as place to help youth gain employability skills and to bring healthy food to an area that is designated a food desert. To say we run on a shoe-string budget would be optimistic. We may not be able to continue past this coming August.
This is not the first time I have experienced this type of theft. In all reality, it is a part of the price of “doing business” in an area of poverty. I am long past being angry about such things. I just feel disheartened. Particularly in this instance for the only possible people to have taken this money would be those who are a part of our program.
It is the betrayal of trust that is the worse of all.
I cannot help but reflect on the question, “why do I do this”? What possible difference am I making? I think of some of my colleagues who work in foreign communities to promote peace and healing, but return to their own secure homes away from these places where they work to bring about change. I am sure they face their own challenges, but right now I am feeling how difficult it is to try and bring about change in the place one lives. A place from which there is no secure refuge.
For sure, I do have the ability to move away from this area. But despite the number of times we have been stolen from and have been vandalized, there are people within this community who are working to achieve a better life. And this better life is not just about increasing economic resources and moving away, but building positive relationships with the people around them. This is what keeps me here, despite my so called white privilege that endows me with the inherent ability to move out of these circumstances.
But this is one of those days that I think I am living an illusion and it is futile to think that things can be any other than what they are. I feel as if there is no way I can be other than “other”. If I were to capitalize on my white privilege, I would be found guilty of hubris. If I try to be the positive change I would like to see … then I am that white person who can’t possibly understand.
It is this constant tug of war between ideologies that I wish to escape. The idea of spreading wings, taking flight and gliding toward the horizon toward realms unknown tugs at my very soul.
Just thought I would share this …..
Ha!! Did that title catch your attention?? Sorry, but it may not be what you think!
Today’s quote is taken from The Fruitful Darkness by Joan Halifax (1993) pg. 67
“sitting in the cave, I at last know what it was to be stoned, to move at a rate of speed like that of rocks, stones, and mountains. Things were going very slowly. I now understand how a place can shape the human psyche.”
Carl Jung wrote about a world ensouled. He even equated Nature with soul. As I have studied ecopscyhology, that posits a relationship between the human psyche (soul) and the soul of nature, I have begun to wonder just how that relationship becomes manifest.
In this quote, Halifax has addressed that which I have become curious about. The place in which we live does impact us at a soul level. In any relationship there is some mingling of soul to varying degrees.
While doing some research I was surprised to find that the percentage of people living in urban areas has risen from 3% to 80% over the last 100 years. Therefore, fewer and fewer people are living in places in which their souls are substantially influenced by nature. Consider the ramifications of their psyches being shaped by urban places.
And finally, if place can shape the human psyche, how might the human psyche shape place?
Journey of My Soul.... 