Here We Go. We'll Do This Together, We Don't Need to Know How

"We've come to our nation's capital to cash a check," - MLK, Jr.

Sunset from Waikiki Beach.

Dear Beautiful Friends,

It’s cold and clear this morning in Seattle. I woke up late and started reading about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr (whose birth name was Michael) over coffee.

A bit like the sunset above, taken last week from Waikiki Beach, a person can feel all the weather and moods in one frame. Sometimes it’s too much. Sometimes it’s the black clouds that grab my attention and I forget about the flicker of light, or how beautiful the contrasts can be.

“Life isn’t all sunsets and rainbows” is something you might hear from time to time, a reminder to clench for the black-cloud reality of life.

But what about the times when life is — in the most literal sense — all sunsets and rainbows? As in, the few minutes when all I saw was the sun setting and one end of a rainbow stripe. Experiencing “all sunsets and rainbows” doesn't mean anything other than that’s what’s seen for a few seconds of life. I was too busy feeling the hum of Sunset & Rainbow to take a photo. So in its place, here’s another of the MANY Hawaiian sunset photos taken last week:

The Hawaii trip was a last-minute one, with my mom and brother. The remaining “Originals” minus my dad, who was there in spirit.

Every evening we watched the sunset—and we were not alone. There was always a crowd. This might have been my favorite part. To see humans gather on the shore to watch a daily occurrence, and in one case result in applause, was a Moment, for sure. The evening sunsets reminded me that People are not what we read about, nor is our idea of what’s happening in the world reality. I had flickers of “well aren’t you lucky,” and “not everyone gets to…” and then I thought: Enough. Take another photo, and I did.

This particular beach section was like being at a concert, but here the band was a trio made up of the sun, a stripe of clouds, and the horizon. They were so good!

Want to see another? This is post-sun dip. So much beautiful drama in the sky.

One more? People went into the ocean to watch. I joined in, and it felt like a kind of naturalist’s church.

This morning in Seattle I’m reading MLJ Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Here’s a graph:

We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

Here’s a sunrise photo.

More “Dream”:

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

Sunset Beach, Oahu

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

Admirers.

You can read and listen to the full speech here.

Here’s the final stanza of W.S. Merwin’s poem “Thanks.”

with the animals dying around us

taking our feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

thank you we are saying and waving

dark though it is

1:1 “Beauty” Coaching for Big-Hearted Humans entering a new phase of life