August 20, 2015

The-Sun-Never-Says-You-Owe-Me

Even after all this time, the sun doesn’t ask anything of the earth.

What’s been calming me down lately is pretending I am a cloud, and then sometimes, a planet. Both are mere observers, and the Tao Te Ching tells us we are witnesses to life happening before us. This keeps me from interacting with it so much, from throwing myself into every situation and trying to control it. It’s much more relaxing to let people and things be who and what they were meant to be.

The way people talk to you, or the way they act, is nothing you have to worry about. I watch these interactions sometimes as though I’m a cloud passing by slowly overhead.

I feel a certain calm when I picture the earth moving through the sky, and the sun’s just sitting there. It removes the load from my chest. It’s easy to remember too, you just look at the sky.

The sun/earth poem actually goes like this:

Even after all this time

The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe me.” 

Look what happens with a love like that,

It lights the whole sky. 

Pretty, isn’t it? It’s called The Sun Never Says by Hafiz and Daniel Ladinsky (thanks Robert Holden). That’s a bit like the way I see God. A constant, loving observer, never asking questions or thinking twice, just raining down the love.

Sometimes after a really great workout, and I’m stretching in silence by myself somewhere, I feel like a planet. (That’s a first, right?) I achieve this weird observer feeling where I’m not thinking about a single thing, just living and being in my own body in full, while at the same time allowing it to be the body it wants to be.

I love this feeling of thoughtlessness. It’s so liberating because our minds are such busy bees, and I often feel caged and enslaved to whatever my mind is thinking. It’s easier to just go dark in your mind, wipe out everything that’s going on in there like chalk on a blackboard.

I think meditation has a lot to do with these feelings. If you guys are looking for a starter meditation, check out Headspace. The first week or so of meditations are free and they come with little cartoons that tell you how meditation works. Because we all need cartoons to tell us how stuff works every once in awhile.

And if you’re ever feeling lonely or unlovable, look at the sun. (Maybe not directly). But feel the way it’s always there for you, even on days you can’t see it. It’s what lights up our days without expecting anything in return. It’s always on, despite us. It’s incomparable to any other kind of love, (except for maybe puppy love), and it feels really calming to know that it’s there shining for you no matter what the circumstance.

It’s so easy to take this and all of our days for granted. Like they’re all part of the same cloth, and some days are dull and some days are boring. But when you expand your perspective to see what’s really going on outside of your bedroom window, all the way from your street to the sun, there’s really a whole lot going on. Dogs are barking, birds are chirping, construction workers are working so hard, clouds and sun rays are shifting, cars are passing, trees are swaying, planes are silently flying above you, the entire foundation you live on is spinning through the universe at just the right pace and angle so that we can exist. Nothing is ever the same, no two moments.

Life is an always adventure of evolving new, regardless of whether or not you can see it. And in fact sometimes we have to crack ourselves wide open to see it, and who doesn’t love a good crack once in awhile?

I was behind in my post today, so I’m writing it just as the sun is coming up. Funny, I thought, as soon as I saw the sky light up. I was just thinking about you!

Have a bright (bright), bright (bright) and sun-shiny day! 

Monique Muro

Monique is an exceedingly happy human from LA. She runs the blog A Novel Quest, and writes. A lot.

Latest posts by Monique Muro (see all)

  • http://melissa-field.com/ Melissa Field

    I love your view of being like a cloud, floating by and viewing life. I used to get inspired by clouds and look to them to help me “lighten up.” I felt the clouds understood the power of release (rain) and knowing that there are no endings, all things return, you just have to let go and trust.