Sun Gazing added a new photo.

I had resolved to get up before sunrise this morning, to re-establish my sun “rise” discipline. I had convinced myself that getting up to greet the sun this time of year and staying up was just too much to expect (sunrise at 4:21, sunset at 11:42 today). Wrong. I did have to miss sunset in order to get enough sleep. Being naturally a night person, this was a sacrifice, but well worth it. Greeting the sunrise on solstice morning reminded me of how precious this time of day is. The world is so new and fresh, and I am like a sponge for what it has to offer.

I took this photo right around the time that the angle of the axis has reached its limit.

My plan is to take a photo of the hedge at the time of maximum angle at the winter solstice.

“Leaf in Glacier National Park” by Ansel Adams

No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.
~ Ansel Adams

http://www.ingebrita.net/archives/category/ansel-adams

In this the sun’s high hour it rests

With you to understand these words of wisdom:

Surrendered to the beauty of the world,

Be stirred with new-enlivened feeling;

The human I can lose itself

And find itself within the cosmic I.

— Rudolf Steiner

Lack of patience is merely an untamed mind, an unruly mind.

Our miniature blue spruce will take years to reach its full height of 8 feet maximum. Brian has been so patient. He wanted a tree to put Christmas lights on, yet it will be years before it will be able to be seen from the street (this winter it was totally under the snow).

I am sometimes impatient when I begin to meditate. It’s hard to allow my mind the time to slow down. Yet when I persist, I enter a state of being where impatience is totally absent. I am content to sit in my spot forever. At the end of the allotted time I DO get up. When that happens, I am able, more and more, to meditate with the eyes open, as I go about my day.

 Patience is the mother of will.  — G.I. Gurdjieff

So it was the little spruce that inspired my meditation this morning: Meditation isn’t a pastime; it’s a baseline.

It is necessary for me to see the first point of light which begins to be dawn. It is necessary to be present alone at the resurrection of the day, in the solemn silence at which the sun appears.

–Thomas Merton

On the morning of June 10, the sun rose at4:24. I got up around 4 am, pulled my pants on top of my nightgown, put on my hat and layers of jacket, coat, vest, and drove along the streets of Anchorage looking for a place where I could see the sun rise in the north. The spot I found was on 3rd Avenue, just next to the Snow Goose Restaurant. I was there in time to see the sun emerge from the low cloud cover, just north of the parking meter.

It has been difficult to rise for sunrise these last few days before the solstice. I have been late, allowing myself to say my sunrise prayer whenever I wake up, which is usually about the time the sun peaks Jenny’s house. This morning I woke when the sun peaked Jenny’s house, thinking I would say my prayer in bed and go back to sleep. But something grabbed hold of me and pulled me out of bed. I chanted my morning chant on the front porch, did my five minute nature meditation, then put on the coffee. The day has begun! Tomorrow I hope to keep my sunrise vow and truly be up and out on the porch for the crack of dawn.

I have to get over the voice in my tired body that says no one should have to get up this early, especially when they have stayed up to see the sunset the night before (4 hours and 38 minutes previous).

1. Pam McDowell Saylor shared Gilbert Sanchez‘s photo.

   3 minutes ago

   

Wonderful how completely everything in wild nature
fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun
shines not on us, but in us. The rivers flow not past,
but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber
and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them
glide and sing.

I woke up this morning with the thought that I have to lose myself to find myself. I have been seeing that there is baggage I need to leave behind; who I thought I was is weighing me down. It’s hard to let things go because it makes me feel that I’ve failed, that I am being fickle. No, I am evolving, that’s all. It’s part of the process of waking up. That’s what I say to myself.

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.  What you’ll discover will be wonderful.  What you’ll discover is yourself.  ~Alan Alda

Endurance is frequently a form of indecision.  ~Elizabeth Bibesco, Haven, 195

To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

http://www.quotegarden.com/self-discovery.html

Am I brave enough to see things as they are, from the space of inner contentment– and not as I wish they were, with an attitude of discontentment? If I am willing to adopt contentment as a stepping-off point, there is the possibility of genuine progress on the path.