The Morning Light

The sun rises and sets at 6:00 this close to the equator. It resets your biological clock to a very primitive mode and your body absorbs the energy of the sun’s time as it’s own.  Waking up at 5:00am feels natural, like my body had been craving this organic experience of living and sleeping.

In the states my sleep system was all over the place. Going to bed at 6:00pm and then 4:00am the next day, waking up at odd times, taking naps throughout the day that lasted longer than 4 hours. My body and mind felt out of wack. But since I arrived here it was like my mind and energy reset to jungle time. I woke up this morning to the sounds of the howler monkey’s and that ever present hum of crickets and cicadas, put on my headlamp, grabbed my camera and headed for the beach to meet the girls for Kat’s last morning with us here.

The Lesson

From my room I hear the crashing of the waves at all hours, but in the dim light of morning I felt an energy pulling me to the beach. Here at Blue Osa we wake in silence and practice stillness until 8:00am. A practice I knew I would love from the beginning. My thoughts, like they always do broke the silence in my head.

The beauty and magic of this place is almost undescribable, and even though a picture says a thousand words, it isn’t enough and doesn’t encompass the entirety of how beautiful it is. As I watched the sunrise and was darting back and forth trying to capture the perfect light, the perfect moment, and perfect memory, it donned on me. I think the curse of the photographer is that sometimes we are so focused on capturing the moment we forget to experience the moment. So I snapped a few photos and then got still to simply watch the sun rise over the distant mountains.

The New Perspective

As I sat there just taking in the sunrise, not fretting about my camera or capturing the moment’s essence in a still photo, inspiration came and I started to write. Though it was short and sweet, something came to me that I will keep with me.

I know that I have a story to tell, and I know that Costa Rica has many stories to tell, and I hope to be the vehicle in which this country can express itself, but this is my perspective and all I hope to do is inspire others to search for their own meaning of the moment, their own essence. This is my story, and I hope to stay open to the universe and open to Costa Rica and the stories that it wants to tell me. Click here to check out my first video of Life at Sunrise.