Dawn After Darkness ☀ Unlearning Devotion

You know that time just before the sun comes up? When everything’s still dark and quiet? That’s when I feel like I can catch my breath and forget about all the crazy stuff going on in the world.

I remember one morning, standing on the beach. The sand was cool under my feet, and I could hear the waves gently lapping at the shore. As I breathed in the salty air, I felt like I was the only person awake in the whole world.

A lot of us try to make that time special. Maybe you’re into yoga on the beach, timing your stretches with the sun coming up. It’s not just exercise anymore – it feels bigger than that, like you’re connecting with something larger than yourself. But what makes these moments matter isn’t doing the “right” moves or following some strict routine. It’s about being real with yourself.

Yeah, being real…. You’d think that being real with yourself would be easy, right? But sometimes, life has a way of complicating things. We get caught up in trying to find answers, to belong somewhere, to feel like we’ve got it all figured out.

Sometimes we run into these charismatic people who say they’ve got all the answers. They teach us special words to say, fancy yoga poses, and suddenly we’re part of this group where everyone seems to get it. For a while, it feels great – like we’ve finally found our people, you know?

But what if you start having doubts? What if being part of that group starts to feel suffocating instead of freeing? I’ve been there. At first, I tried to push those thoughts away, thinking maybe I just wasn’t trying hard enough. But the doubts kept creeping back in. I’d look around and wonder if everyone else was really as enlightened as they claimed, or if we were all just pretending.

Realizing all this can be scary, but it can also set you free. It might lead you back to doing things your own way, which is probably what you needed all along. For me, it meant going back to those quiet mornings alone, just me and the sunrise. No fancy poses, no special chants. Just being present and honest with myself.

Reclaimed

I remember dawn, a sun greeting on the shore,

the tide’s rhythm my only guide, asking for nothing more.

But then I entered sanctum doors, where an all-knowing guru sat—

promised higher states of being, yet left my soul shell shocked, flat.

 

Beachside mornings turned into rooms of ceaseless chant,

my body bend in asanas, in a spiritual recant.

The sun I once greeted now rose without my view,

as I was tangled in a web of devotion, knotted askew.

 

I wore my service like a shroud, sewn with unseen tears,

trading ocean’s horizon for walls, laden with veiled fears.

What was once a dance with the day turned obligatory rite—

my free-will offering now coerced, morning light dimmed to twilight.

 

Mantras that once held magic turned monotonous and stale,

an eerie chorus to a guru, who behind charisma hid a tale.

Bathing in his words, I felt adrift, no longer myself but part—

of an orchestrated devotion, that estranged my yoking heart.

 

I’ve left that ashram’s haunt, its incense and facade,

stepped out into the open, where authenticity isn’t outlawed.

The ocean calls me back, as I unlearn and reframe,

no guru dictating postures, no doctrine in my name.

 

I greet the sun anew, though its light touches scars,

my practice now a whisper, not a mantra stretching far.

As I fold and breathe and stretch, reclaiming every lost part,

I find a new horizon within—my soul’s true restart.

 

Now each dawn’s a reclamation, as I sink my feet in sand,

a rebirth, not in scripture, but in sea’s unscripted land.

With the sun a silent witness, I embrace a yoga free—

from a guru’s heavy doctrine, to a practice that’s just universe and me.

(11/01/2021 © Julia Delaney)

Follow your heart.

Be Alive 🌱
Love ❤️, Julia

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