Sunsets

I have an inordinate number of pictures of myself facing the ocean, looking into the sunset. This is strange because I live in a desert thousands of miles from any given ocean. Even my inland pictures are frequently of bruised skies mourning the sun.

There is something magical about a sunset.

When I was five, my father explained sunsets to me. He said that the colors in the sunset are always there, but we can't see them because of the angle of the sun/atmosphere/something else about physics. Do you know? I can't remember the exact description, but I do remember the key element. The colors in the sunset are always there, we just don't always get to see them.

So much exists that we can't see unless we are lucky enough to look at just the right time, from the perfect angle. This is true in yoga. When we slog through our days and start to look down at the ground, we forget to look up and we forget to look within. Stepping onto the mat we put ourselves in the right place for an amount of time that something might fall away and we might just see the colors in the sky. We salute the sun, we sit, we lie down, and if we are lucky enough we drive home just in time to see the sunset. We see what has always been there. That which is within us begins to reflect the brilliance of what is around us, which in turn, shines more brightly inside of us.

We set the world ablaze.