Nate is a Clinical Social Worker, father, and Stockton University’s Assistant Director of Counseling Services and Active Minds advisor. He is also a Heartfulness Trainer, and enjoys pet therapy, cooking, surfing, and Yoga.

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Nate Morell

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 NATE MORELL
 celebrates the healing beauty of the dawn and a beautiful sunrise. Through
 this connection with nature, he also discovers the purpose of our human
 existence.
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 It was 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning as I walked my dog next to the Mill
 Pond. It was cool and dark with the smell of pine trees and fallen leaves in
 the air, about an hour before sunrise. My photographer friend Susan calls this
 the “magic hour,” because there is a beauty and a stillness to the world only
 experienced during this wondrous moment. The first light of the day began to
 appear over the pond and along the tree-lined horizon. Within minutes, streaks
 of electric pink and tangerine orange spread across the sky and bounced off
 the high, cool, deep, fluffy, purple clouds.



 The entire ecosystem seemed to be alive and celebrating the coming of the new
 day. The fish were jumping from the water, the hawks and ducks were calling
 out, quacking, and screeching, and my pup and I were taking it in, honoring
 the dawn along with the world, absorbing it all, every precious and sacred
 moment.



 In her autobiography, Wild, Cheryl Strayed quoted her mom as saying,
 “There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to
 be there for it. … Put yourself in the way of beauty.” That quote resonated
 deeply within my heart and stayed with me, and so there I was, showing up with
 my dog “in the way of beauty.”



 As I continued walking next to the pond, I realized that I was experiencing
 healing from nature. This sunrise felt like an antidote to the painful,
 gripping, pressured, complex, anxiety-producing, and Covid-exhausting thoughts
 and emotions that had entered my life through the tiny cracks of the heart
 over the last eighteen months. These complexities had built up, and until they
 were either felt or released, I would break down again. Here, I experienced
 nature as big enough to hold all my emotional pain, maybe even the whole
 world’s pain, and I smiled and let go of trying to control everything. Nature
 generously received it all.


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 I experienced nature as big enough to hold all my
 emotional pain,
 maybe even the whole world’s pain, and I smiled and let go of trying
 to control everything. Nature generously received it all.
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 The water on the lake was perfectly still. As the sun rose higher in the sky,
 an unbelievable and overwhelming golden yellow-orange warmth consumed the sky
 and reflected perfectly off the calm clear water, which doubled the beauty of
 the sunrise. I thought to myself, “What could I possibly create that could
 match even one percent of the exquisiteness of this moment?” It was all so
 perfect and freely available; all I had to do was show up and bask in the
 light. How ridiculously lucky was I to be alive? I felt joy for the grace of
 attending mother nature’s church, and sadness because my dog and I were the
 only ones bearing witness. What could be more important than this?



 We walked along the water’s edge and soaked in nature’s gifts. I had the urge
 to meditate and realized that in five minutes a group session would start on
 Zoom. I had a foldable chair and towel in the car, so I gathered everything I
 needed and set up next to the pond under the pine trees. I had not consciously
 packed my meditation things, but they were there, ready for me.



 I activated the Zoom link and began by relaxing my toes, moving upward, and
 letting go of tension in my body, all the way to the top of my head. I felt
 the complexities and stress release from my physical body, especially from my
 shoulders, jaw, forehead, and neck. As my body released the stored stress and
 trauma within, I experienced a release of the weight of the world. I was then
 left feeling light and spacious.



 I became aware of my heart, and of something sacred, precious, and intangible
 within the heart. I took a chance and surrendered to a place of limitless love
 and depth. I went deeper and deeper, letting go, and falling into love. I
 experienced a brief wave of fear, realizing I may never come back, but then
 trusting that the doorway in my heart was creating and supporting this moment.
 I let go completely.


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 I became aware of my heart, and of something sacred,
 precious, and
 intangible within the heart. I took a chance and surrendered to a
 place of limitless love and depth. I went deeper and deeper, letting
 go, and falling into love.
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 And then a movement into surrender, merged and absorbed in love. “I” was
 nowhere, and yet somehow still intricately woven into the depths of
 everything. The experience may have lasted one second or a million years –
 time had stopped; being “me” had stopped. The peace of the Center, the root of
 the root, the actors dropping away and the truth shining so brightly that it
 burnt away anything that was not Reality. Words, beliefs, language, culture,
 gender, fear, separateness, desire, aversion all stopped. Breathing and the
 experience of a beating heart stopped, as if a “drop of clear water was
 dropped into the ocean,”1
 except this ocean was infinite love, and the drop of water was the soul.



 At some point, awareness of “self” with a physical body, a social security
 number, a job, and a family loosely reformed. Oh my gosh,
 everything I will ever need is already within me! That is the point
 of this life. There is nothing to think through or figure out. It is not a
 secret written in Sanskrit or locked within the Da Vinci code. It is not some
 huge problem that needs to be solved to earn my way to salvation. It is an
 experience that is available to us here and now, and the pathway is through
 our hearts. We are here to realize the Source for ourselves. How pure, simple,
 and beautiful. It was there all along and I had completely missed it.



 To have experienced this revelation and taken it in was mind-blowing. The
 silliness of spending my life chasing things I desire, and avoiding things I
 don’t desire, hurting others out of fear or to protect myself, worrying about
 what other people think about me, acquiring expensive cars and clothes,
 relationship dramas, having a respectable social media presence, FOMO, job
 stress, politics, saving the world, external recognition, degrees, achieving
 status, and making my family proud seemed unspeakably off the mark. It is not
 that these things are bad; but making them the purpose of my life is deeply
 misguided.


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 I will never achieve deep and lasting happiness through the pursuit of
 external things. Instead, all I have to do is show up and surrender to the
 unfathomable beauty in the essence and depth of the heart. It has been said,
 “Love is always offered and never forced,” so it comes down to that really.
 This entire universe is just one big offering of love, and all we need to do
 is show up and accept it. That’s all.


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1 Swami Vivekananda

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