Midwestern prairie strikes me inconsolably barren when I first visit: vast swaths of flat earth, featureless corn fields, incessant wind, brutal heat. Over time, however, I discover pink shrub roses and black eyed Susans, Indian paintbrush and killdeer feigning injury to distract interlopers from its nest. Nights offer star-crazed skies and the thrill of yipping coyotes; Fall transforms vibrant green into Van Gogh gold. Especially I love the spacious, uninterrupted sky that contains and carries my contemplative nature as easily as it holds the song of wind-swept cottonwoods. Visit by visit, I fall in love with prairie.
Discouragement on the job
My day job often looks like those early visits to the prairie—barren and featureless. Years earlier I make a decision to stay with the job, believing its difficulties work on me in transformative ways. But past weeks I feel lost and discouraged. Difficult questions assail me. Am I meeting the challenges of my life? Do I choose wisely? Does my life have significance?
With summer solstice approaching, I make the decision to pack-up my troubling doubts and head for the home of a friend where I will find my favorite antidote: prairie.
Destination reached, I throw myself into action: admiring gardens, inspecting apple trees, sketching landscapes and playing in an empty grain bin where sound ricochets wildly off circular steel walls. Still, tension and doubt remain and challenging questions weigh heavily. When mosquitoes and unwelcome cloud-cover dominate a sunset walk, I retreat, discouraged, to an indoor sleeping room. My plan is to rise early and watch the solstice sunrise.
Glory all around
Near four o’clock, my eyes flutter open. Dressing quickly, I walk outdoors—and gasp—a witness to glory all around. Gone is the murky overcast of evening, replaced by a cloudless sky spattered with a million stars. Air pregnant with moisture and grass pearled in dew add to the transformation. I take my place in a chair set out the evening before, greeted by the gentle chatter of tree swallows diving for a predawn meal.
Flatness of prairie offers an unobstructed view to the east where a narrow crack of light peeks above the horizon. Gradually, as the drape of darkness lifts, spectacular blues and vibrant pinks — like unruly watercolor — seep and stain the sky. Languid yellows and pearly whites follow, pushing and spreading in all directions.
More time passes and my attention shifts from the celestial palette to an experience of quickening in and around my body. Its visceral quality unseats me and I spring to my feet, eager and expectant. As the light increases so does the quickening I feel. Slowly, with commanding presence, the sun crowns, revealing a tremendous magnificence and peculiar sense it is aware of my attention and admiration. Sun still rising, I feel as though it has come for me and I fill with an unspoken message:
My arrival is significant and your noticing is significant and your admiration and attention please me and my radiance is for you and to benefit you. You are deserving, you matter. Do not worry! Life will not wait or be denied and you are not to hesitate but to live.
Astonished…jubilant…I want to shout, emptied of questions and filled with unexpected joy, exuberance and 1000 watts of wonder. I watch the sky until dawn turns to daylight then gather myself and begin the day feeling fiercely alive.
1 thought on “Solstice sunrise”
I am there, too. Moving.