Sixty-Something: The Dance of the Eternal Souls

The east end has multiple charms that dazzle those who pause to notice. If you are disposed to spend time at beaches or boating, you understand the variety of powerful sunrises and sunsets. I call these skies the dance of the eternal souls.

I swear at the zenith of sunrises and sunsets, I feel the presence of every soul that ever existed or ever will. The east-end sky is so big and full of naturally evolving clouds, colors, and angles that it exemplifies spiritual power. There has to be a higher hand at play. One cannot create such an endless changing canvass without forces that no mortal can truly harness or even explain.

What I enjoy is how these magical moments happen unexpectedly. I often find myself just looking up and saying wow! When I lived in Ditch Plains, Montauk, the stars on cold clear nights over the Atlantic Ocean always reminded me of what commercial fisherman Jeff Bline said twenty years ago. He said, “I am not a religious guy, but when I am seventy miles off Montauk on a clear night and I look up at the stars I know there has to be a higher power.”

When I look up at the stars at night and lock in, I know there is so much I will never know. Often I think of ancient Long Islanders standing in the same spot on the ocean shore, thinking the same thing.
My beagle used to look out at the ocean sky and feel something besides the pleasant sea breeze. He would sit and look out over the water. Ever notice dogs staring out at the ocean? They have to be processing something.

While under sail in Gardiner’s Bay, I enjoy watching the sky rapidly change colors at sunset. I often scramble to take iPhone pictures or videos, but as we all know that totality can’t be copied.
The greatest Renaissance painters, like Leonardo Di Vinci and Rafael, painted skies with their god given gift. Their genius of composition and color have mesmerized generations for decades. However, I believe the east end sunsetting sky often surpasses any of their efforts.

I learned in Pelham Memorial High School in the 1960’s that, “matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed by ordinary means.” Therefore I believe the energy that fuels a living being that some may call their souls never ends. It buzzes about in the open skies. And when a new life starts that energy enters that being and stays there while that life lives. It’s a circle of life.

The dance of eternal souls is more than a feeling to me. Those sunset skies conjure up deep memories and feelings of deceased friends. Funny how so many times looking up at the sky, I still hear their voices saying wise things in the back of my mind. They are with me then. I just smile and know during sunsets and sunrise, they are all just showing off doing the dance of the eternal souls.