Sunset

About an hour before the sun dips below the horizon, people begin to gather. 

Swimming in the calm ocean, playing music, acro yoga jams, solitary figures in cross-legged meditation; people gather in various ways and for various reasons. Folks know they’ll find friends at sunset, have a chat, or dance together in the drum circle. 

Coming together to mark the passing of another day feels holy to me. 

When I sit and watch then sun's last moments on this part of the earth for this day, I feel a sense of solitude. It's just me and the sun, no-one else. My experience of this moment is just me. The sun's rays coming across the vast distances of space and hitting my skin, my retinas...only I experience it in this exact way, in my body. I feel the preciousness of this day, this moment.

And I also feel a beautiful connection to the rest of humanity. To those who are right here with me, gathered on this very beach in the Gulf of Thailand, and also with all the other little humans scurrying over the face of the earth, everywhere. This sunset connects us. Whether or not we see it or notice it, the sun setting has finished the day for each of us. 

I think that it’s the noting of the passing of time, the memento mori this moment brings which makes it feel so sacred to me.

Reflection seems easy at sunset. And there is also the easy reminder of it all being a gift - I can’t make the earth continue to rotate so we enjoy another day, any more than I can summon my next breath. It is all a gift.

Neil says to me, "It's easy to think that once the sun is out of view, that's it... But there's so much more!"

It's true. There's so much more. 

The colour plays in the sky; the water reflects silver, pink, orange. A flock of Pacific swiftlets race overhead, chasing twilight bugs. There's so much more. 

The drums flow together, the hang drum and guitar and trumpet sing to each other.  

A big cloud rises up from the horizon.

(a post by Ro)