My mother-in-law and her sister loved taking pictures of sunrises. Both women shared many of them on Facebook or by email or text from their ipads; a very techie thing for a couple women in their 80’s. They obviously felt sunrises are much more special than I thought them to be. I’m more of a sunset person; you know that moment at the end of a day that says you’ve survived another one, now go celebrate with wine! Sunrises were just a warning I was going to soon need to get out of bed!
My mother in law photographed a sunrise nearly every morning from her east-facing 9th floor balcony. Many of her sisters were taken on a beach near Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Many of them included her, with and without others, facing a new-born sun, posed with arms raised as if worshiping Ra – the Egyptian Sun God. Ra, supreme to all other gods, was worshiped as creator of everything. His daily path through the heavens represented the cycle of life, death and rebirth. When he fell below the western horizon in the evening, he was believed to have died and entered the realm of the dead. But, every dawn he was reborn and his majestic rising gave new light and life to everything on earth encouraging all to flourish along with him.
There were so many sunrise pictures I began to think of them much as Ronald Reagan once described the redwoods, claiming once you’d seen one, you’d seen them all. The sunrises were, of course, different in many ways, but the sheer volume of them overwhelmed any uniqueness to my mind so I cared little about seeing more of them.
Once we stayed at the house in Cabo where the sister took her sunrise pictures. As a lark, we decided to take one of our own on that beach to share. So in the predawn hours we dragged ourselves from the comforts of bed early enough to get down the hill and onto the beach before sunrise.
It was dark, and quiet – everyone with any sense was still asleep. The air, while not exactly crisp, since it was July, was the coolest it would be all day. With camera and tripod in hand we started down the path to the beach. A somewhat treacherous hike in the dark as it is a steep, twisting dirt path littered with ruts, slippery sand, loose gravel and rocks.
On the beach, our quiet is broken only by the sound of waves crashing softly onto the beach in a regular, never changing rhythm, a constant since the beginning of time. The waves had erased all the footprints from yesterday leaving only ours, freshly made on the empty beach like modern day Robinsons Caruso. This reminds us that the events of yesterday are passed, they are gone and cannot be changed – only remembered.
We walk along, facing east so we will miss none of our sunrise. The eastern sky began to lighten, faintly outlining the mountains around Mazatlan, Mexico across the still-dark Sea of Cortez. The birth of the new sun was imminent, its arrival announced by streaks of golden light streaming into the grey sky, highlighting a few clouds, hinting at the dramatic display soon to come. We stop to watch as the sun slowly peeks over the edge then bursts forth illuminating us, and the world, with its light, warming us with its heat.
The blank slate of a smooth, clean beach combined with the rising sun proclaimed the gift of a new day and the promise of a fresh beginning, so inspiring it is easy to imagine it accompanied by music; a rousing Phillip Souza march or the Sunrise movement from the Grand Canyon Suite. Slowly, involuntarily – almost unconsciously – we too raise our arms overhead in greeting and praise to the Great Ra.
I forgot to take our picture! But walking back to the house, we have a new-found understanding of what inspired all those sunrise pictures. Our souls are as refreshed as are our bodies following a nights’ rest. Our spirits are renewed and we are eager to start afresh our new day rich with opportunity, alert to new experiences and secure in the promise that it will rise again tomorrow.
