part of my assignments for my meditation and relaxation class is to meditate every day and to try out different meditation styles. mantra meditations is repeating a mantra over and over, and i didn’t connect to it right away. i prefer visualization meditations where i’m walked though a scenario, especially when it involves water.

so tonight i decide to try a mantra meditation again, and the mantra i use is “i am a worker of light. i am a light worker.” then the guider on my video asked what you see and to notice what your mind’s eye associates with the mantra. so i started thinking about sunrises and sunsets, moments in the sun.

the sunrise over the missouri river, lighting up the valley and boats bobbing in the pier.

the sunrise lifting across a frost-laden field littered with large bales of hay on a crisp october morning in lanesboro.

the sunrise as i run through the woods, having started in the dark and slowly seeing more and more as the sun makes its way into the sky, lighting up trees and roots and rocks and other detritus. doing its best to warm up my extremities.

the sunrise on an early june morning as i pack up a car with gear to go somewhere, anywhere.

the sunset i saw from atop a ridge as i was driving southwest out of lanesboro with the striations of clouds in mixtures of blues, purples, pinks, oranges. i had to stop a take a photo that did it no justice.

the sunset over a soybean field in southern MN, dark pink on the west and gradiating to dark blue on the east.

the sunset over the pacific ocean while standing on the edge of santa monica pier with jane.

the late sunset that is a gloaming, dark periwinkle with stars starting to peek out.

the sunset over the lake as i paddle through lilypads on my paddleboard.

the sunset to the west as i sit on my patio, sometimes with weather brewing, sometimes with clear skies, sometimes with long cirrus clouds that reflect silver edges and float pink in the sky.