Previously, I spoke of sunsets as a relief from afflictions brought on by modern life. Of how a walk with one’s gaze fixed to the glorious heavens was a remedy for a sedentary screen-dominated life.
There is however a deeper spiritual union to such divine phenomena. A union of man’s heart to that most breathtaking, transient, and spellbinding of sites: a fading sunset.
One of my most sacred daily rituals is the sunset walk. A time of stillness and purity. Of blissful isolation. No chatter from the commercial machine. No pleasing of people. Just myself and a symphony of history; that which built a still sonorous spirit.
And as I cast my gaze upon these vast vaporous structures in the sky, illuminated in heavenly hues of peach, scarlet and lilac; the mind does not race. It does however, flow. Flow briskly but without commotion. Like a momentous river of the old world; without the crash or white of waves; masses of water flow. Peacefully yet of steady, momentous volume.
Not thoughts but rather lyrics of the soul flicker in and out of existence; seeing the light of consciousness for no more time that is necessary for the full forces of their current to carve ever new tributaries in the arterial web of the heart.
“Am I looking at the same sunset as her right now?” “If I could stand up there on the glowing podium of light and vapor, will everything then be ok?” “Will those dreams of her go away?” “Do I want them to go away?” “Why do my peers seem so unappealing?”
These fleeting throws of the soul last no longer than perception itself demands; not worth the words they inhabit. In fact they are invariably followed self-ridicule at their wistful self-indulgence.
And then I keep walking. In what seems like a sinful act; I turn my face from the diminishing splendor. As the sun slowly fades and the clouds turn to grey; so too do these lyrics of the soul. And as darkness falls, I enter again into my solitary vigil at the computer. Sipping an iced coffee to quench my thirst and tickle the neurons back into their post-modern-industrial-complex digital drudgery.
Michael Firus 