The Sun and her Stillness

My therapist told me to disappear somewhere where I can be apart from my body- somewhere that I love.

I feel the cool breeze slip through the holes in the hammock that lay in the back-yard of my old home, just the same as I hear a lullaby of sleep stream from the shallower part of my conscious. With my eyes closed, they peer above, at the leaves glimmering and fiddling in the soft breeze. Other than the shimmering of the sun’s reflections, I can’t see the placement of the leaves on the canvas of the golden sky painted by the setting sun. The shimmer comes with a sound, of tapping or of crackling, as the leaves touch one another into reality. The hair on my face shifts as I turn towards the sun, where she sits on the horizon, taking one last look at her kingdom before visiting the rest of the world. For a moment, I meet her eye, and I see more of the world she calls me to. A sudden yearning for her soft, rich light to light up more, and so she waits. She sits there, and I stare, longer than a person who isn’t dreaming should, until her stillness becomes something unusual.

                I sit up, the blanket and pillow that stayed with me now gone, disappeared, but it doesn’t phase me. Instead, all I want to see is the world beyond that clearing. My bare feet settle into the dirt on the floor, full of needles and seeds and sticks. I pull myself up and towards the opening in the tree line, the opening that I moved through so consistently so many years ago, often at the same golden time of day, and when I emerged, the world felt like it dropped away at the edges. It spread beyond where my eyes could see, covered in hills and birch and swamps, all painted with orange. I would fade away from my body, watching the world from above, seeing the never-ending, until the sun decided to no longer hold my gaze, and the worlds end would draw ever nearer, until the sky wasn’t yellow but navy, and the fields weren’t pink and orange and green, but grey and disappearing. My ribs would shut tight, comfortable in the fresh-cut grass that poked at my callused feet, but my mind would sit wanting, anxious, discontent, wishing.

                I step through the small forest line, where I used to tip-toe and watch the particular leaves that I would be trusting with my comforts sake on that day. Here, I step without conflict, without treacherous thoughts and adventurous purpose, and my eyes don't settle for anything below my own eyeline. As I reach the opening, I pull back that particular branch that always threatened to poke at your over-eager eyes. My foot lands on the other side of the world, and the tree-line behind me unfolds into nothing, leaving my body alone with the openness and the sun.

                The pattering of the leaves disappears until all I hear are the waves of the earth, comparable to the lullabies I fell asleep to, along with birds (most prominently a red-winged blackbirds warble) and the crunch of the grass below my own feet. The sun holds her gaze with me, frozen and giving. The hills roll towards her, flowing through the ground like waves, unending, and larger than I remember. They flow through the earth slowly, revealing and hiding the odd tree or patch of something wild. Mesmerized and comfortable in knowing the ending to this story, I watch the waves of earth unwind as far as they can go, creating a puzzle for your eyes. The sky lets the earth take over her space with sweetness and humility hard to come by naturally. I wonder how she knows how her complexion makes my brain calm down, just as the hills mimic my mindful breathing, and the sun teases energy into my soul the same as my happy lamp should.