meditation – Radiance Within

Spring Dawn

June 4th, 2025

When you wake at dawn, you have no choice. Go outside. The birds are shrieking the song of life. The version of it you are living right now must be lived. Go out. Greet it.

Live in the hope that the answers to all your prayers—all that you lack agency to do, all that you need to light you up, complete you, to make your life take flight—all of that steps boldly over the dewy threshold of the morning, marching in time with the harsh beauty of birdsong.

Don’t go back to sleep. Don’t avert your eyes. Get up, go out, meet the sun. Let it fill you with heat and light. Rise.

Maybe this dawn is telling you, singing to you. Arise. Enjoy the fruits of creation. We can plant trees. Water them. But we don’t have to tell them constantly to grow. We don’t have to stand over them and tell them to extend roots deeper into soil. We don’t have to watch, hover, or worry. Bit by bit they grow.

Whether you strive. Whether you rest. Whether you are young or old or something in between. Male or female or something in between. You are going to have good days and bad days. Good weeks and bad weeks. Good hours and bad. Minutes. Seconds….

The moments won’t be predictable. You will endure miseries. When the chaos clears, may grace find you. May you embrace life with tears in your eyes and a heart full of love.

Grace dwells in unexpected places—a drop of rainwater glimmering on a blade of grass, the orchid-like flower smaller than your thumbnail—laughter, the warmth of someone’s hand holding yours. The overflow of gratitude is even more precious because you don’t know how long the goodness will last.

Practice gratitude as if your very soul depends on it. Let your spirit pray thanks to life, consciousness, breathing, and the stars at night.

Hold on, hold on, hold on—birds are singing your song, our song. We are the living. Our time is now. For better or worse, we are beating. We are hearts. We are winning.

Let the beauty of I love you rise out of you in a song of thank you. Your voice joining the cacophony. All life on earth, now, and that has ever been. Cheers you on.

-Radiance Writer

Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash
Sunrise

September 3rd, 2022

Even though I’m not a morning person, I get up at 5am to teach a Sunrise Yoga class. My yogi soul can’t resist the idea of performing Sun Salutations at dawn in front of a windowed wall overlooking a lake.

I was glad to have a reason to be up. It must’ve been that way for the medieval nun making her way to chapel for Vigil. The speckles of Orion’s belt twinkle over the neighbor’s roof, and as I back out of the driveway, a thumbnail of moon hovers above the garage. It looks over my shoulder as I drive, and by the time I park, it hangs over the building I have to walk through a patch of trees to reach.

On the gravel path, it’s still the middle of the night. Crickets chirp and frogs croak. Cypress trees and mulched earth fragrance the air like frankincense and candle smoke. Above the buildings the brightest stars and morning planets dot the black sky.

The whole scene disorients my already foggy senses. The sky is usually bright blue and full of puffy white clouds when I walk this way. The contrast is dramatic. It gives me pause and reminds me of the medieval nuns again, waking at all hours of the night to pray. A flash of gratitude warms my heart and eyes.

During the day this place is full of people preoccupied with agendas and meetings and work. At 6am peace and tranquility pervade, and just for this one morning, I’m awake to see and feel it.

It doesn’t matter that by the time I set up the room for class and five minutes, then ten minutes, then fifteen minutes pass and no one shows up. The room and the moment is as beautiful as I imagined it would be.

I drag my mat closer to the wall of windows. The crescent moon hangs on and the first light begins to appear in pink and orange streaks.

I begin. Inhale, arms overhead. Exhale, bow forward. Inhale, lift the head. Exhale, step back. Lower down. Inhale, upward facing dog. Exhale….

Now I understand why those early yogis meditating on the Ganges were compelled to move. One has to do something when one aligns and feels that the earth, the sun, and the moon are moving, when one witnesses and feels so much a part of it.

I stop my practice. If I hurry, I can reach the beach in time.

When I arrive, the water lapping the shore is so warm, I am tempted to wade all the way in, clothes and all. Tips of seaweed poke through the waves. The first ray stretches across the ocean, a gesture that makes it feel like love is what lights the world.

A man walks in front of me. I notice his white goatee and then his smile. “Happy Wednesday!” he says.

I was disappointed that no one showed up for my class. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a new day, and I’m here to see it.

-Radiance Writer

August 24, 2022
Time to Love the World

August 24th, 2022

Hard as it may be to justify, what was once a luxury is something I can no longer afford to lose. The extravagance of spending time in wild places is becoming the necessity it has always been.

Twice a week I teach yoga classes at a corporate campus situated on grounds that preserve the habitat of a South Florida barrier island—beach dunes, coastal strands, and cypress swamps. The walk from the parking garage to the building is a hike on a winding gravel path through saw palmetto, live oaks, and dodder vines.

For years I have hurried to get inside and then hurried to get home or to my next class or the bank or the grocery or wherever I thought was more important than where I was.

Only recently, after telling myself that I needed to plan more weekend trips to local parks and the beach, did I realize that I spend time in a nature preserve twice a week on my walk to work.

Only recently did I allow myself time in the middle of the week, in the middle of a work day to just stop, to give up trying to control when was an appropriate time to enjoy a place where the trees, plants, animals, and vines are going about their business of living despite the intrusion of humans.

I went even further, stepped off the gravel path, sat down next to the shallow water of the swamp. From there I couldn’t see the upper stories of the buildings nearby. It was just me and the water and the habitat.

Much more than I ever could have imagined greeted me there.

A previously hidden universe literally sailed in on white wings. The soft “thuft” of feathers was audible as an ibis landed and began poking its beak in the loam.

The high noon sun radiated across the water. I relaxed onto the damp grass and soon saw that I was in the company of more than a bird. Tiny fish were darting and treading. Spotted dragon flies skated by. A leaf fell from a tree.

More time, more attention revealed turquoise sequins on the tails of the fish. Why hadn’t I seen them before? And there were larger fish, too, sporting muted turquoise stripes. Where was I just a few seconds ago that I didn’t see them?

Out of nowhere a turtle as large as my torso angled through the water. Something prehistoric stirred in me. The age of myth was palpable. I wanted to tell her story, as if she were the mossback that brought the first land up from the deeps. She puts me in my place. In the epochs of time on Earth, my time is fleeting, yet frighteningly impactful.

All the peace I’ll ever need existed in the ten or fifteen minutes that I stopped, watched, and waited.   I didn’t have to go looking for nature. I needed to let it find me. I needed to give reverence time to catch up to the commotion of an average human day.

There is enough time to love the world. There has to be.   My soul tells me I have no choice.

-Radiance Writer

August 3, 2022
Time to Stop

June 20th, 2022

Sometimes I don’t know when to stop. I don’t know when to stop talking. I don’t know when to stop doing. I don’t know when to stop trying, thinking, and figuring. I just don’t know when to stop.

That’s when I know it’s time to do nothing. It’s time to sit on the floor and withdraw to the bare minimum of what must be done to sustain me and my life. In this moment all I have to do in order to live is breathe.

And if I breathe deeper, I can extend my smile, unwrinkle my brow, hear the air conditioner kick on and off. I can hear the crickets calling out from their invisible places in the grass, trees, and shrubs. I can hear and feel the pulse of my own heartbeat. I can be without doing, fixing, striving, or working at it. I can be. Just be.

-Radiance Writer

June 16, 2022

Photo by Keegan Houser on Unsplash

Spring Dawn

Sunrise

Time to Love the World

Time to Stop