Written while waiting, rather impatiently, for the sun to peek over the mountain at Gates Hut
Elevation 9700 feet
June 29, 2025
This morning I tried to rush the sunrise.
With an empty coffee cup in my right hand, I began to wonder how much longer until the sun would arrive, to peek over the summit, so I could greet the day on the mountain top and head inside to fill my cup. As though the sun was on my timeline.
As though I controlled anything at all! Ha!
The epitome of a life lesson playing out in real time.
Patience.
All things, all events, all interactions, all of humanity, since the beginning, have been merely observers of and walkers on the pathway of time, and certainly time has never been within our control to slow down or to rush.
It’s this passage of time that allows us to experience, learn, grow, and change. To create, live, and die. A thousand times in a lifetime. Time consists of the interwoven network of all of nature, the divine and perfect functioning of the natural cycles that operate as they were intended, all of them on their own and in their own time.
Nature has her own cycle, a rhythm, a purpose –
The slow meandering deer couple coming out of their bed just before sunrise to cross the meadow. Stopping to nibble a bit of purple lupine for breakfast along the way.
The clearly upset squirrel sending a mouthful of boisterous scoldings from one tree to another – who is over there listening?
An optimistic and percussionist-worthy woodpecker off in the distance peck, peck, pecking, at an insect filled trunk.
The quaking aspen grove flittering its leaves – top, now bottom, then top of leaf again, shimmering in the pre-dawn of new light.
And, now, the distant mountain peak lit first just the tippy tippy top with the newly emerging rays of the sun. The shadows slipping further below on the mountain slope behind me. The light begins to shine brighter and bigger.
The bumblebee circling, sensing, choosing, – yes!, this one, please.
The iridescent fine strings of a spider web strung from the dry white seeded dandelion head to the pink mallow and now crossing over to the thousand leafed yarrow.
And, suddenly, the sun crests at just the perfect moment!
Blindingly gorgeous in its full glory. Tears of joy, gratitude, and love.
Just imagine what I would have missed had I rushed the sunrise this morning.
Bianca Toscano, ND
Bianca is a former US Marine turned Naturopathic Doctor. She lives in Northern California, where she spends as much time as possible outdoors running, hiking, gardening, camping, paddleboarding, reading, and backyard BBQ’ing with family and friends.
Dr. Toscano is the Associate Director of Partnerships at the Institute for Functional Medicine, and the owner of Shine Natural Wellness, a virtual online private practice specializing in auto-immunity in women.
