I just watched the sun rise over Haleakalā National Park.

It was my tenth visit to the crater. It never gets old.

While balancing on two rocks, hoping for a little better view over the heads of hundreds of others who'd also driven the winding trek 10,000 feet above the clouds, I shed silent tears of joy at the opportunity to witness yet another dawn in this beautiful thing we call life. A new day. Another chance to get it right. To make amends. Forgive. Celebrate. Honor our call to be here on earth. Every day a new birth day.

That's what I felt as the tears welled and the crowd went still and silent, many with their cameras and smartphones pointed toward the eastern horizon, waiting for the first glimpse of golden orange light. As the light appeared, a group of Native Hawaiians started singing—words I could not understand but whose meaning I felt. I swayed to the rhythm of their harmonious chant to sun and sky and earth and sea and nature and God and life and mystery. The timelessness of it all.



I've been on earth 62 years, and am ever more conscious of what that number means to others.

But I know for sure that it's nothing more than a marker of time, a measure of breaths taken and days passed. The number doesn't impact how I feel about anything or anybody—especially myself. I'm more in touch with living in the present moment than I've ever been before. I think I've finally mastered the power of now. (Thank you, Eckhart Tolle!)

And this moment, this breath is too ginormous, too precious and wordless, to ever be defined by a number.

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