It was just before the dawn and I was standing on the south
rim of Grand Canyon waiting for the sun to rise. I wasn't sure just what there
was to see but whatever it might be I thought to see the sunrise at Grand
Canyon was a worthy thing to see.
I was fifty-three and for more than forty years I had
dreamed of visiting this wonder of the world. It had even grown to an important
status in my life involving some potential anti-suicide attempt. In other words,
I had promised to myself if ever such an impulse were to dawn on me with fever
pitch, I would make my way to this exact mind-blowing vista and let it talk me
down from such a limited point of view.
And here I was, at the second destination in our great southwestern
whirlwind tour, awaiting what it had to tell me just for the sake of listening.
One by one, the buttes and mesas lit afire, depending on their height or westerly
direction, and I was lit as well with such an obvious understanding, but
something never felt in such a raw experiential way.
The sun doesn't ever really rise. But like awareness, for
example, it's always there, right here, right now, and I am nothing but its cosmic
earthly unbelievably magnificent manifestation. As if I were a thing to be
extinguished! I watched and laughed in universal joy.
