I ask all blessings,
I ask them with reverence,
of my mother earth,
of the sky, moon, and sun.
I am old age: the essence of life,
I am the source of all happiness.
All is peaceful, all in beauty,
all in harmony, all in joy.
Navajo Wisdom
Awe, fear, confusion – the full spectrum of emotions seemed to be tumbling through me as the sky suddenly switched from sunny to almost complete darkness. My mind, however, wanted to ignore everything I was sensing, and instead, linger in a state of denial. Laughably, I somehow wanted to stay stuck on an idea that this kind of weather shift only happened on a hot afternoon in late summer, not late spring.
There was no time for pondering the split between my mind and emotions. It was a familiar phenomenon where my mind lags behinds what the rest of me is experiencing. Sometimes the lag is prolonged – for example, with unfathomable outer events such as shifts in the socio-political environment. Here, the mind had to quickly absorb the reality and move me to gather the laundry off the clothesline and check if any of the windows were open.
Within seconds of the sky having darkened, the wind moved from a light breeze to strong gusts. The feeling of awe began to gush through me as fast as the rain began to pour from above. Truly stunned, all my actions simply froze, and left me standing in the doorway between inside and the deck outside. Instead of conveyances for traffic, the surrounding streets had become riverbeds. Red blossoms, which had been loosened from the branches from the force of the rain, bounced and danced across the street surfaces. Water spurted from gutters and tops of roofs, arcing up and out before tumbling to the ground below.
I would have stood there in that doorway until the rain stopped. Yet, my mind, seemingly now more in sync with the present, prompted me to step out of the metal-framed doorway. Just as I stepped back, there was a bright flash in the sky followed by thunderous rumbles. Like a cartoon image of a flash of awareness, the lightning bolt seemed to penetrate my inner sensibility, shifting and broadening my perspective.
As I watched from a safer distance inside, the lightning continued. The feeling of awe had settled into a sense that everything and everyone, including the ancestors, were simply twinkles of light. And, within that peaceful sensibility, there was complete absence of the need for categorizing, ranking, labeling, or differentiating. After all, there is only light that is manifested into shapes, colors, and sounds.
The storm lasted about ten minutes. Within that time, I felt as though I’d glimpsed the nature of existence and beyond. It seemed that I had travelled through the cosmos and many lifetimes. After it was all over, I asked my partner Jay, who had been taking a short afternoon nap, whether the rain and thunder had bothered him. His answer was: “It rained?” Now, I’m wondering if I was the one who had fallen asleep and been dreaming. Whatever the case, it left me being a little lighter, more peaceful, balanced, grounded, and perhaps a bit more capable to stay clear and present within all the stormy outer happenings. I hope you will join me.
Practice
This practice supports awareness of reverence within everyday life.
Prepare—
- Remove all digital devices from the space where you are, including watches. If you are using a digital device for reading this practice, please turn it to airplane mode. Overall, set the intention of listening only to your own body, emotions, breath and inner sense of being during this practice (i.e., free of outer devices).
- Come to a comfortable seated position.
- Gently close your eyes. Imagine that you can release any tension in your eyelids and your eyeballs. Slowly move your eyes up to down, left to right, and then diagonally (e.g., first, upper right to lower left, then upper left to lower right).
Practice—
- Open your eyes with a soft gaze. Slowly let your eyes scan around the room or area where you are. Pause and allow your eyes to rest on the floor or ground beneath you.
- Silently acknowledge the gift of the ground beneath you.
- Perhaps, allow your mind to appreciate the source of the surface beneath you. For example, if you are inside, a natural wood floor would come from trees. A concrete floor would likely come from sand from a river that has been ground and mixed with water.
- Silently acknowledge the gift of the space around and above you.
- Perhaps add appreciation of the abiding presence of the sun and moon.
- Silently acknowledge the ancestors, not only for the gift of your embodiment but all of humanity as well as the ancestry of all beings.
- Then, lightly close your eyes (or keep them in a soft gaze) and invite awareness of the gift of air moving in and out through your nostrils.
- For a few moments, quietly notice the quality and movement of your breath, ideally without judgement or labeling – just noticing and appreciating this life companion that is a continuous link with all living beings from birth to death.
- Pause and sit quietly for a few moments with a feeling of great reverence for life.
Transition Back into Your Day—
- Continue to sit quietly for a few moments.
- When you are ready, return to your day.
This verse appears in Mala of the Heart: 108 Sacred Poems, edited by Ravi Nathwani and Kate Vogt, page 21, published by New World Library. Photo is by M. Mancewicz on Unsplash.
H E A R T H is posted each full and new moon. KateVogt©2026.
