Sunrise here wakes the Pacific Northwest --and me. The sky is blue and clear. The heralding songs of the early birds are silent now and the night's darkness is gone.
Awake, I'm awake.
As I bask in the coolness of the morning breeze, I know it's afternoon in London, sunset in Addis Ababa, midnight in Sidney and dawn of another day in Vladivostok. While others are awake, some are sleeping. It all depends on where you are.
This interplay of light and darkness, wakefulness and sleep, brings to mind Old Father Raven, the extraordinary bird whose life animates all that is. As the Alaskan myth goes, Old Father Raven hid in darkness and one day woke up all by himself. He discovered who he was. He awoke into self-awareness.
But waking from the sleep of darkness does not always happen spontaneously. In the “Hymn of the Pearl,” we read that a King sent his young prince to Egypt to bring home a pearl that a wild serpent guarded. The Egyptians attacked him, took his possessions and drugged him to sleep. Through his psychic powers, the King knew from far away what was happening to his son. The King's wise men wrote a letter that they delivered to the prince in his dream. He read it. He woke up. He overcame the serpent and brought the Pearl back home. The King honored him.
As I wake up with sunrise this morning, it occurred to me that there’s another way to wake up. I desire to wake up spontaneously like Old Father Raven. Or maybe like the prince, there’s a letter being sent me by the King’s wise men in the events of my life. I desire to wake up from my long sleep, ready to bring home the Pearl at such a time of great awakening like this.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
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