Snooze

As dawn draws near, there comes a moment when something begins to stir. The darkness of the night starts gathering itself into almost imperceptible eddies that announce the end of times is at hand. A rooster crows in the distance; alone at first, it is soon joined by other crowings, each one closer. It is time to wake up.

While we are still asleep, a current of life runs through us from end to end and makes us stretch our feet and sigh slowly. Something in us draws near, letting us know that soon we will open our eyes.

"Wake up," a silent voice grows audible.

Heaviness, however, tries to prevail. The comfort of resting is still appealing to those of us spellbound by the dreams unfolding beneath the wings of Morpheus. The sheets persuade us to rebel against the light gently seeping in between our eyelids.

Caught between these two seemingly opposite forces, we fall into confusion. We say "We want peace" while we wage war, "God is love" while we hate our neighbor, "We only want to be happy" while we sink into the darkest whims of our primal instincts. A battle flares up inside our dreams, and they turn into nightmares.

Why does the delight of sleeping all night tucked in the dark dissolve into anguish when the light begins to shine? Would it be better, perhaps, if dawn had never peeked through?
And so we soak ourselves even more in what is left of the night clinging to our retinas, seeking in our dreams a peace that is no longer possible there.

Nothing can stop the sun from rising now. Nothing can keep the freshness of day from filling everything, or the power of being alive from rousing our innate strength to get up and walk, radiant, across the flowering meadow.

So much struggle, so much misery, so much sorrow. No matter how hard we push one way or the other, the battle is fictitious. When we wake we will see that all the suffering of our lives was nothing but the delirium of a sleeper who wanted five more minutes.

The birds sing their finest trills, celebrating that the cycle of life goes on undaunted upon the Earth. The brightness of the king of stars scatters every hint of darkness, not by fighting it but by showing our eyes that there is no such thing. What is green looks green to a clear gaze. A new day gifts us the chance to keep on breathing.

Meanwhile, the sun casually watches the world turn, happy to shine on and on. For the sun, night never existed, for it always blazes, present, in the eternal firmament of its fullness.