Are you a sun or a black hole?
I know very little about black holes except they’re dark, invisible, and suck in anything that gets too close. Nothing gets out once it’s in — even light disappears forever in its powerful embrace.
What do I know about the sun? It’s huge, hot and beautiful. It’s the major source of energy for life on Earth. Besides being indispensable to life, the sun is also an artist. Every day it paints the sky we live under, producing masterpieces morning and night.
When the sun rises above the horizon on cold winter mornings, I understand why the ancients worshiped it. I don’t bow down or offer sacrifices, but I thank it for turning up. I couldn’t live without the sun.
How to Live
As well as making my life possible, the sun shows me how to live.
The sun brings light and warmth. It reveals things and shows the shadows of things by shining its light on them. The sun nurtures life by enabling processes like photosynthesis, cell growth, healing, and decay (which keeps the cycle of life going). The sun does these things all the time and will keep doing them until it dies.
How do I live? Am I a sun or a black hole?
Do my thoughts, actions and emotions bring light into a room?
Do I bring warmth, or does the atmosphere suddenly turn dark and chilly when I turn up?
Do I promote life processes? Do I encourage growth? Do I find ways to heal matters? Do I keep shining through the ups and downs of the cycle of life?
Living with mindfulness
Stevie Wonder wrote a wonderful song called ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’. It isn’t just a love song. Like the sun, its words show us how to live: let out the love that’s inside us, every day, for everyone.
Bring heaven to earth.
The world needs a literal sun for life to be sustained here, but the world also needs figurative suns — you and me — shining light, warmth and love wherever we are, whatever we do.
Without the sun, the earth would be a black hole: dark, cold and lifeless.
Without the light, warmth and love that mindfulness brings, the world is a dark, cold and lifeless place.
Enjoy your day of mindfulness.
To give your mindfulness path a boost, take the 7 Day Mindfulness Challenge:
With love, Marlane
Original version published on Medium.com/Illumination
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