Morning Has Broken – A Desert Poem

Ribbon Sunrise

Stop everything and be still. Let the fire of stillness burn everything and reveal that which is Openness. ~ Adyashanti

darkness
there is an emptiness in the black
until I allow time enough to adjust
midnight dark is not cave black
look to the skies
luminescence
star shimmer
and against a back drop of starlight
Jupiter is the headliner in the western sky,
hovers above the outline of the terraced copper mine
and Venus hangs low on the eastern horizon,
and gradually this awareness: pink haze seeps through the indigo blue
illuminates the mountain’s silhouette
details come into focus
canyons within mountains
bajada crevices are the foothill’s showy skirts
rose-pink, dove grey, orange on the horizon
cotton candy in the pale blue sky

morning has broken

~~~~~~~~

Posting a desert-related poem each day in April, National Poetry Month. Updated poems from my blog archives, new poems written as sacred practice, and selected, favorite poems from other poets. Spending much awake time in early morning — which gives me opportunity to wait…wait…then watch the sun rise.

Driving to the Desert – Arriving Home

 

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1500 miles in the past, 300 miles yet to come.

Driving towards Alamogordo, New Mexico. Clouds hug the mountain ranges.

The snow from the last hundreds of miles has melted and, except for a few puddles, the desert looks like the desert.

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Ready to be home.

The Organ Mountains, one of the newest National Monuments (2014), rise above the clouds.

Warmer air blew in from the west and trapped the cooler air below it. This caused a cloud inversion which pushed clouds low in the canyons of the mountain ranges and exposes the high peaks.

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It was a late and very dark arrival — and included a bonus! A meteor shower through the front windshield as we drove the final 30 miles. Even a green shooting star! What a welcome!

The morning after the late arrival…the sun had yet risen over the Santa Rita mountain range and the clouds were bright with desert glitter sunlight!

And I am home. Home in the desert.

~~~~~

This is the last of the “every 100 miles” series.

All photos taken using my iPhone and Hipstamatic app with filter set on random. Since time and distance were the priorities, all photos were taken “on the fly” = zipping past at 65-75 miles per hour.

Essence of travel.

Sunrise Illuminating Maui

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Approaching harbor in Kahului, clouds rest on the vibrant green mountain sides. This side of Maui has about 130 inches of rain annually near the shore and over 200 inches of rain in the mountains.

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This side of the Maui is very green, also guaranteed to be wet and rainy much of the time. (The western, dry side of the island gets less than 20 inches of rain per year.)

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Pulling into the harbor just before sunrise. As the sun crests the peak on the opposite side of the harbor, the greens are bathed in sunlight, the mountain’s shape and texture become visible.

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Approaching Maui

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The sea, the skies, the clouds, awaiting sunrise…

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A view to cherish.

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Approaching Maui.

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Haleakala Volcano shrouded in clouds.

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Haleakala National Park is an hour’s drive southwest of Kahului and is home of Haleakala Volcano. Amazing place, sacred place to generations of native Hawaiians.

Haleakala National Park stretches along the southern and eastern coast of Maui. As the tallest peak on the island, Haleakala rises over 10,000 feet and it can be seen from almost anywhere on the island. The Hawaiian legend of Maui the Demigod, one of the greatest cultural gods of Hawaii, tells of him standing on the peak of Haleakala and lassoing the sun as it crossed the sky so that the sun would slow its descent and make the day last longer.

The sunrise did peek through the clouds that shrouded Haleakala as we pulled towards port. That evening, we saw the sunset from the summit of the volcano, the clouds parted just in time to let the light stream through (in a post soon to come…)

Winter Star at Sunrise – Everyday a Story

Star at Sunrise

Star at Sunrise © 2015 Bo Mackison

There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.”
~ Terry Pratchett