Softness

At sunset the light has a lovely, soft quality. It's golden and makes everything beautiful (in a from-the-inside-out kind of way). The special light of sunset makes me feel bathed in warmth or wrapped in a blanket of acceptance. On Thursday, I walked home during the sunset. Besides taking fun shots with my camera, I also reflected on my mood, the light, and my surroundings.

The soft, accepting light of sunset is a great model for me. It models the gentleness with which I want to hold my own heart and the hearts of others. The light at sunset is never harsh or rigid or unkind. It is soft, accepting, and generous. On days when I feel overworked or fearful or blah, it's often difficult to access that special sunset light. Yet especially on those days it's helpful for me to be gentle and accepting of myself and others. 

Sharon Salzberg is a meditation teacher and expert on loving-kindness practice. She often speaks about the end-of-day-replay we do in our minds. Her spot-on comment is that we typically focus--with a laser-like beam--on the one "dumb" thing we said or the unfinished to-do item or some other negative aspect of our day. Her question: Did anything else happen today? That question is like shining the soft light of sunset on the actions of your day. What good things happened? What connections were made? What made you smile? What mistakes did you learn from? What insight (minuscule or huge) did you gain? In what small ways did you make your life or someone else's life better?

There's always some nugget of happiness, growth, kindness, or strength in every one of our days. We just need to pause and soften enough to see it. But when we do, it's bathed in sunset-quality light.