
When it all seems too much,
when the news is so bad that meditation itself feels useless,
and a single life feels too small a stone to offer on the altar of peace,
find a human sunrise.
Find those people who are committed to changing our scary reality.
Human sunrises are happening all over the earth, at every moment.
People gathering, working to change the intolerable.
People coming in robes and sandals.
People coming in rags and bare feet.
And they are singing, or not, and they are chanting, or not.
But they are working to bring peace, light, and compassion for humankind and to the world.
There is nothing too small any of us can learn to do to help us out of our predicament. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the Human Sunrise, brightest when we shine together.
Here are the ‘human sunrises’ in my life:
First, my husband is at the top of my list. My sister is right up there too – not only did she teach 7th grade for for eons, she also taught 3rd – even though she lives with chronic pain from having had cancer – and this is only the tip of who she is. More human sunrises are the folks who come to yoga through the good times and the trying times, each has such a special life story. My friends are right up there too. All my teachers. I also appreciate all those people who are doing their best, no matter what that might be.



“August is the month during which nature celebrates her maturity. The hatchlings in the nest have found the wings to fly and the boughs of the old apple tree are heavy with fruit. The Godseed within our hearts is also ripening so that we become more flexible, more tolerant of the shades of gray that characterize life on planet earth.