Maturity (Part 1)

If you live close enough to a coast that faces East, plan a morning to visit the beach and witness the early reveal of the sun, courtesy of your position on Earth and Earth’s orbit.   Arrive before it reaches the edge of the horizon, so you can find a comfortable space to sit and watch.  Now, pay close attention.  You should notice in the portion of sky above the center of the water beginning to brighten.  The color should range between yellow, orange, red, and pink.  This effect will gradually increase and soon you’ll see a slight cut out of the top of the sun.  At first, it’s not as bright you’d think.  You’re able to look directly towards the center of our solar system.  Light grows through a larger portion of the sky, while slowly making its way to your feet and further, depending on how you’re seated.  More than half of the sun can be seen now.  You start to squint a little.  The environment around you enriches in warm sunlight.  Your face tingles.  You check the time.  You wait a little longer.  Then finally, it’s all there.  The 4.5-billion-year-old, with a radius of 700,000 kilometers, 5,500 degrees Celsius, Sun, in totality, can be seen (science.nasa.gov, 2024).

You may stand up from where you’re sitting and approach the ocean.  You may sit longer, as you’d like to enjoy your peace for a few more minutes or hours.  However, at some point you’ll need to depart because…well, life.  Here’s something to think about as you’re returning to your car or walking back to your place that’s close by.  Right now, in Frankfurt Am Main, Germany, the Earth rotates the view of the sun towards us at around 08:01 and fully rotates us away at around 17:14.  That’s roughly nine hours and thirteen minutes of Sun, not factoring in seconds and a potential 1-to-2-minute offset (timeanddate.com, 2024).  As the days progress, sunrise will be earlier, and sunset will be later.  For wherever you are in the world, these results will differ, but maintain the same premise.

Now, you’ve probably noticed how I’ve done my best to dance around not writing that the sun rises.  It’s simply because it doesn’t.  However, the Sun, to include the Earth, is orbiting the Milky Way galaxy as it rotates.  From our view, there’s no way to see either of these instances with the naked eye.  Though, regardless of if we could see them or not, without these operations in motion, we’d probably cease to exist.

So, you should have some idea about a few of nature’s nuances that give our life a setting.  Because of our setting, we cannot fathom an experience without the vital pieces of a setting.  Land.  Sea.  Air.  Weather.  Time of day.  Meanwhile, there’s even more holding our survival intact that we have no control over.  The ability to acknowledge what those things are, like reading a blog, is a conclusion that takes time embrace.  When you watched the sun appear pass the horizon, you knew that you had to wait if you wanted to realize its fullness.  I believe the fullness of life requires the same quality you instinctively possessed to see the sun this morning.

Patience: The quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.  (Dictionary.com, 2024)

Love,

Raph