Morning at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico

At daybreak, the almost black clouds rolled behind the mesa like a sail being cranked down a mast. The sun eventually peeked over the edge after highlighting wisps of cloud into intense brilliance. The darkness drooped and light was shining again. But while it was too overwhelming to gaze upon, blinding in its spectacular emergence, the real story was in the opposite direction.

When I descended to the camp, I found a row of other spectators facing not to the east and the newly dawned fireball, but gazing to the west, watching the play of light upon the mountains in the distance, the hills in-between, the rolling plains. The light brought the greens to new life, to a fresh day. The blue sky cleared of haze and foggy wisps to become its own perfection.

Lesson: The story that morning was in what the light shone upon, not in the sun itself.