Rooster Crow (9/4)

Awakened by a rooster crow instead of an alarm. Out to my little balcony and sit drinking in the deep morning silence and the stunning view of this remarkable town perched on a hill. Last night, the streets were bustling with the chatter of people dining outdoors, the blare of distant Chinese pop music, the dazzling lights and beeps of scooters weaving through the streets. Now the streets are empty and all is in a peaceful slumber. This perpetual traveler remembering the rooster-crow mornings like this in Guatemala, Costa Rica, India, Bali, the world slowly coming to life, perpetually renewing itself accompanied by the roosters, birds and first sounds of people stirring to life. The remembrance of the days begun with Life renewed in its full splendor.

 

And we humans awakening with it all, part of it all, greeting the praying mantis on our porch, feeling the first rays of the morning sun on our skin, drinking up the silence like a morning tea. Calendar time falls away and we feel the company of all the fellow two-legged and four-legged creatures who have begun the day like this since time immemorial. Before we got kidnapped by the distracting devices of our confused creation and paid attention to all the wrong things. When each new day was an invitation to renew and refresh and rejoice and remember that we wholly belong to this world and are wholly welcomed to walk side-by-side with its grandeur and be embraced by its wonder. 

 

Below me, a lone person walking through a rice paddy, couple holding hands sauntering down the street, smoke curling up from a distant chimney, the sun peeking over the hill and this contented traveler coming alive with the day, emerging into his old, forgotten self, where the whole carnival show of accomplishment and identity falls away, vanished with the sound of a single rooster’s crow.