Missing the Sunrise

I woke up at 6:45am this morning with the intention of watching the sunrise. It’s a New Moon in Aquarius today - 1/29/25 - and the start of Lunar New Year. This is my birthday New Moon, a “gift from a loving Universe.” I’ve been fond of ceremony with the lunar cycles for some time now, it’s been a ritual that isn’t too demanding as far as dedication to the practice. It’s been a while since I’ve done a full on ceremony, however. I try and trust the ebb and flows of when I feel called to a more elaborate container versus simply pulling a card, and the latter has been the medicine recently.

But today I wanted more. I wanted to feel my connection to the Something. I wanted to assure that the promises of this New Moon came to fruition. Last night I sat with what this desire for ceremony wanted to look like. The energy was flat. I wasn’t excited or charged. I wasn’t getting a sense of what this grand expression of my devotion* was to entail. I settled on simplicity, watching the sunrise was to be the main event. My intuition told me that was enough, but my mind felt like it needed more. As I sat in stillness a bit longer I noticed my copy of the Radiance Sutras and decided it would come along for the voyage. I also collected a few earth friendly items I could potentially leave as an offering. I grabbed the oracle card I had pulled weeks ago that inspired me to watch a sunrise. And lastly, my book of shadows should some divine words find me or a spell come through me. I made a loose plan and trusted that everything else would be taken care of, and with that, went to sleep.

I didn’t sleep well. I had a dream that I overslept and missed the sunrise. I decided to still go up the mountain (did I mention that I live next to a small mountain?) even though I had missed the sunrise. This dream was offering me a glimpse - a clairvoyant message - yet the part that stayed with me was the sense of disappointment. I woke up to an obnoxious alarm because the song I had so meticulously selected to play for my wakeup apparently didn’t save. Rather than be guided to the waking world by the joyful and playful melody of Rusted Roots, this grand gesture to the Universe began with the nervous system startling tones of the default setting, ‘radial.’

I was planning on being out the door by 7am. At 7:13 I tied up my laces, and by 7:15 I closed the garage door. It was already bright, dawn had broke. I had to move. In a still quite heavy fog of shocked-out-of-bed-with-not-enough-sleep, I made my way to the mountain. It was still doable, I could make the sunrise. As I climbed up the switchback, I became painfully aware that my body was not prepared for this. Straight up hill first thing in the morning with a cold and stiff body? Yeah. I also realized how much work it actually is to get up what is really not that big of a mountain - one could call it a really, really big hill. I typically have Sheila with me and am now aware that her annoying stopping to sniff every single fern and pinecone actually made this climb feel much easier. Barreling up with no stops and a ticking clock proved to not be the meditative pilgrimage I had envisioned for myself.

Once at the top, I knew which way East was but couldn’t get a clear shot. I had known there were barriers to optimal viewing, but now in the moment with time against me, I wasn’t sure what to do. Part of the ‘loose plan’ was to wander a bit until I found a place I could pull over and setup shop without potentially interfering with any other early morning hikers and bike riders. At this point I could see hints of pink streaking the sky. Fuck fuck fuck. I’m supposed to be sitting in the middle of an incense cocoon by now. I walked for a bit and found myself faced with a choice. I could continue to try and find a spot where I could potentially witness the sun [continuing] it’s rise, or settle for a spot with a below average view, yet safely off the trail. Seeing as I was still warding off waves of nausea from the HIIT workout, I settled on a not ideal spot at about 7:30am.

I debated continuing on with the plan. I couldn’t see the sun, this spot was off the trail yet also awkwardly still in the middle of two intersecting paths, and as my heart rate slowed the sweat was beginning to turn into an arctic freeze. I just wasn’t feeling it. I remembered part of what I had written the night before, below the instructions for the ceremony: Listen. Then there was the part in my dream where I missed the sunrise, but still decided to go.

I setup incense to the 4 corners and sat in the middle. I tried to take some breaths and even tried a mudra to drop me into the moment, but honestly, it wasn’t happening. I had decided I would sit until the incense burned out (safety first). So, I read the passage from the oracle card. I opened to a Radiance Sutra and read it to the earth. I said good morning to each of the directions. And I did my absolute best to just try and Listen.

I was probably there for about ~35 minutes. Impressively I was only met by one other human whose curious and confused Labrador stood and stared at me until it’s owner called her onward. With the incense out and my hands blocks of ice, I gathered myself and began the descent down, sans deep meaningful connection to the Something. I arrived home at 8:35, not full of Spirit and life as I imagined, but tired and cold. Slowly letting the experience release as I went about making some coffee and sitting down with a very disapproving Sheila (she definitely knew I was on a walk…without her), I began to recognize that I knew how this was going to play out since the moment I decided that I would attempt to harness the magick of the the New Moon.

It’s hard to articulate what it is that drives this part of me that doesn’t believe blessings will find me if I don’t work for them, earn them, prove myself for them. I think part of this ceremony was actually [and unexpectedly] about choosing an old, played out narrative to follow and letting it show me that it’s bullshit. That grand ceremonies can be potent and profound, but I don’t them to feel connection. That leaning into my spiritual ‘training’ is a resource, but I’m innately the conductor of magick. That everything can go wrong or not as expected, and it doesn’t correlate to my worth. That all I ever have to do is Listen. That my Devotion* is enough. I’m always enough, exactly as I am, with or without the sunrise.

I’d like to think I left that old story up on the big big hill. That this experience was the exact ceremony I needed. I mean, it got me sitting here writing, something I haven’t had the drive to do in months. Truth be told, I don’t have a great moral or grand conclusion to share, I don’t know what did or didn’t happen up there this morning. I just know I have this story to share. But something tells me, that’s enough.

Cheers to the Mystery.

xx,

Kerrie

p.s. As I upload these photos it’s the first time I’ve reflected on what I wrote last night for today’s ceremony and the Radiance Sutra I [randomly] chose to read to the mountain. Well, I mean- MAGICK.