To Stand Between Light and Dark
Before I arrived in Nags Head, I had already heard about Jockey's Ridge State Park, and how the top of the ridge hosted great views of sunrises and sunsets. From this high point on the island, you can see the sun rising over the ocean on one side of you, or the sun setting over more water on the other side. The house I was staying in backed right up to the ridge.
On the last morning, I slipped out with a few last exposures in my camera and climbed to the top of the small mountain of sand to watch the sun come up. We'd had a full moon, and it was still hanging high to the west even as the sky was dressing in morning light.
I got to the highest point and watched the horizon come alive with color. Then the sun rose above the ocean, large and electric red and I stood suspended in between night and day. I looked straight ahead in between the sun and moon and the light drew a line down the center of my face and frame. To my right, crickets chirped loudly and to my left birds sang. I tried to hold the paradox of having a foot in each world, of standing literally across the threshold of light and dark, night and day.
It was such a powerful moment for me, and such a visceral experience of my interior journey as I've worked to stand on the threshold of my own sun side and moon side, to own them both equally and integrate them into an awake and aware whole. It's amazing to see and feel in my own body that there is a way to stand in the presence of the full moon and the rising sun, to hear at once the chorus of the songbirds and the crickets, to have light and dark draw their line down me and not be split.