6:40 a.m. Approach

I drove the golf cart down the Perimeter Road of Isla Muheres, a slender six mile long island off the coast of Cancun. Peering out toward the Caribbean in the faint pre-dawn light I could just see the long white crests of waves rolling shoreward. Over the whine of the golf cart motor I could just hear the rolling thump-crash of waves breaching upon rocks and sand.

Headlights on I kept watch for the brutal topes, the axle-smashing, body-rattling speed bumps that pop up all along the roads of Isla, sometimes announced by a sign, and sometimes not. There were few golf carts on the road at this early hour. They would emerge en masse later when the tourists woke up and began their day of sightseeing and revelry. Now, only an occasional motor scooter (moto) or a taxi zipped by.

Putting through a neighborhood of little stores and small stucco houses I saw a few early-rising tourists filing into the Mango Café for breakfast. I drove past the high school where students were already arriving, drove past the largely unused airport and into the downtown area known as Centro. I had to stop in a traffic jam of motos in front of an elementary school where parents were dropping off their children.

The young students looked clean, well-groomed and neatly attired in their uniforms, carrying lunch boxes and backpacks, stepping with aspirations of independence away from the doting aura of their parents.

The scene at the school struck me as a universal event, a wave synchronized with the sunrise slowly circling the globe; students starting their school day in different settings with different cultural trappings, but still the same core experience. The scene also struck me as a wave flowing through time, a new cohort of students passing through the grades; learning, adapting, evolving, a new generation heading toward adulthood.

I continued on to my destination, a small stretch of undeveloped beach on a sheltered cove known as Hermosa Caleta. I had spotted this location a few days earlier while on a walk and had been surprised to find a chunk of natural shoreline so close to the center of town, adjacent to MIA, a luxurious all-inclusive resort, and only a few hundred yards away from North Beach, a tourist mecca crowded with comfortable rental lounge chairs, wandering merchants, massage booths, and walk up cantinas selling ice cold beer, frozen margaritas, tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole.

7:08 a.m. Resonance

Waves broke upon the reef rocks that stretched across the entrance to the cove, bluish –gray rollers in the dim light, rising in height and then crashing on the black rocks in a cascade of white foam. I inhaled fresh, cool morning sea air. I had no idea what compounds or ions the air contained, but when I inhaled deeply I felt an immediate and deep sense of well-being.

Behind me the sea breeze swooshed and whiffled the palm fronds, a sound almost as soothing as the sea surf. From the casually cared for lawns of the old and simple villas behind me came more fresh morning fragrances, the scents of tropical trees and plants.

An egret stood statue still in the shallow water of the cove, pale white plumage, spear-like black beak poised to strike, a solitary figure, focused and patient. Somehow, in the receptive emotional state created by sitting still and alone, I felt a connection to the egret, felt as if some species barrier dropped away. We were linked. We were both solitary watchers. And perhaps, the egret was showing me how it was done, a kind of nature teacher.

Further down the beach, a man slept in the sand, left arm folded over his eyes. Next to him sat a young boy in a swimming suit. It occurred to me that they had probably slept on the beach. There was a backstory here; missed the last ferry, waiting to meet someone during the day ahead, out of money, or who knows what.

The boy, on his own, unsupervised walked down to the water, and stretched his toes into the water, testing the temperature. There was no sense of distress emanating from the two. Whatever their story was they seemed to be adapting to and moving with the ebb and flow of their circumstances. I usually prefer solitude during a sit spot, but I was glad for their company.

I also felt a sense of connection to them, a different sense, a reminder that we all are tossed by the tides of life, and that there is a certain dignity in gracefully going with flow. A taxi rumbled across the wooden bridge to MIA, the resort built to resemble a cruise ship, with a white, sloped-back super structure and a broad pink smoke stack. But this ship was beached on a rocky reef where it provided a full view of the sea, an ideal location I thought.

7:18 a.m. Reflections

The time for the sunrise passed, but I saw no vivid display of colors along the southeastern horizon. Instead, heavy, lumpy, gray clouds hung above the sea. A single patch of luminous creamy yellow shone through a gap in the clouds, the only confirmation that the sun had indeed risen.

Then I recalled my experience from last year when I did a sit spot at Punta Sur, the southern tip of Isla, the first spot in Mexico touched by light of the rising sun. On that occasion, another cloudy morning, only when I turned my head to the northeast did I discover a band of bright colors, a reflected sunrise in an unexpected direction.

I turned and looked to the northeast again, and once again spotted reflected sunrise colors. This time a high bank of soft pink, orange-tinged clouds cast a shimmering reflection onto the mirror like surface of the adjacent bay.

7:28 a.m. Calico Birds

On the beach, all around me, little shorebirds, ruddy turnstones, scooted across the sand and along the water’s edge. With their brown, russet, black and white plumage, bright orange legs, and stout black beak they looked like little feathered calico cats.

In the past I had seen ruddy turnstones at a distance but never so close and I treasured the opportunity to observe them in action. They were in constant motion, feeding busily, dipping their beaks into wet sand searching for tiny crustaceans and flipping up dry sand looking for insects.

As the turnstones ran right in front of me they appeared small and delicate, almost like the baby chicks sold around Easter. But when they spread their wings, long, slender, streamlined, brown and white patterned wings, they suddenly looked large and powerful. Soon they would need their strong wings to make their annual spring migration to their breeding grounds on the arctic tundra, an epic journey of more than 9000 miles. Soon they would join uncountable waves of birds; sandpipers, warblers, thrushes and more streaming north through the night sky.

They were in a sense snow birds, just like me, and just like the guests at MIA. But the turnstones had a sense of urgency and it showed. They needed to eat constantly, to pack on fat, the fuel necessary to power their long journey north. Perhaps it was this urgency that led them to overcome their natural wariness and feed on this beach so near to human habitation and so near to me.

7:38 a.m. Birds

The first waves of workers began to arrive at MIA, passing through the gate raised by a young gate keeper and then stepping across the bridge to the world of tourist hospitality. Judging from their uniforms they appeared to be housekeepers and culinary workers. At the same time a few trickles of early tourists flowed in the other direction across the bridge, heading to the Mexican world of Centro, for breakfast, shopping, and sightseeing.

From the palm trees behind me I heard a melodious coo-coo-coo with an emphasis on the final coo, the song of the white-winged dove, a Caribbean and Central American cousin of the mourning dove I knew from home. I enjoyed the rhythmic tones of its call, a contrast to the long mournful coooo of the mourning dove.

One flew down and landed in front of me on the beach. I liked the appearance of the white-winged dove, the same clay colored body as a mourning dove, but with neat white trim at the edge of its wings that flashed white when they flew. Most of all I liked the delicate, dressy brown line at the base of its neck. The dove walked slowly across the beach and eventually flew off.

A male great-tailed grackle, black headed, yellow eyed, and with an iridescent blue-black body flew down and landed on the sand in front of me. I watched him walk across the sand, scanning for food, probing the sand. I heard more grackles behind me calling their loud, rusty hinge, squeaky calls.

Three rock pigeons flew in and landed on the sand. Rock pigeon is just the formal name for the multi colored common pigeons that inhabit the streets and the parks of major cities. The three pigeons strutted in front me, proceeded up the beach and then with a flapping of wings took off and flew away.

Behind me I heard the ongoing creative, ever changing three part calls of a mockingbird, chip-chip-chip, dit-dit-dit, chicka-chicka-chicka. A ring-billed gull walked along the shoreline. The ruddy turnstones continued to scurry back and forth across the beach. I heard their chirping calls when they flew up and settled back down. I began to feel like I was sitting in an aviary watching and hearing waves of birds come and go.

7:48 a.m. People

Fitness folk began to appear. Two women striding in from the direction of North Beach, attired in shorts, shirts and tennis shoes, wearing sunglasses, talking animatedly, power walked down the beach. An older man in a swim suit, barefooted, deeply tanned, wearing a ball cap stepped slowly, but steadily and purposefully through the wet sand at water’s edge. A woman jogged by. Far to my right on an embankment bordering the cove and separating it from the next cove a group of people, silhouettes in the early morning light, began to stretch and twist and then settled into a series of yoga poses.

The next wave of MIA employees, began to arrive, men and women, casually but neatly attired. They looked more like office workers, sales agents, and administrators. At the same time more MIA guests streamed across the wooded bridge heading to Centro. The boy walked into the water. A couple waded into the water.

Even as more people walked by the ruddy turnstones continued to scuttle along the wet sand, to fly up with sweet chirps, to land in unison, to seek and probe and feed. Right next to me at the top of the beach a dozen turnstones circled around and flipped up the sand up with their strong bills. They seemed to like something about this spot. The sand was densely cross-hatched with their foot prints.

I felt as if I had become a fixture on the beach. As I sat still, blended in, and became almost invisible it seemed as if waves of life ebbed and flowed all around me; the lives of the birds, the people, the sea, the eternal ebb and flow of the tides. Usually I was wrapped up in one or more of these waves but now I could observe them.

7:58 a.m. Blue and Green

I gazed again at the waves breaking on the rocks at the entrance to Hermosa Caleta. Full daylight had arrived and the waters of the Caribbean, rolling unfettered from the coast of Cuba, took on a deep blue hue. I watched the waves rise and round and then crash and thump onto the black reef rocks in a slurry of white foam. Energy spent, the waves spread tamely into the cove where the water was green-blue in color.

Water, waves, wind, surf sounds, and the smell of the sea breeze enveloped me. I stared at the deep blue sea water; blue, the color of tranquility and calmness. I looked at the green-shaded cove water; green, the color of nature, health and well-being.

I studied the waves. Three big ones crashed in succession, then three smaller ones, and then the water devolved into disorganized chaos before five more well-formed waves rolled in and crashed upon the rocks. Randomness and patterns permeated the sea.

Further out I spotted a white boat bobbing on the surface. I was struck with another moment of emotional resonance, of boundary blurring between me and the boat. Weren’t we all solitary boats floating on the ocean of life? Yet the sight of the boat didn’t create melancholy, but rather a sense of encouragement, as I could trace its steady progress across the sea.

A man, dressed in black pants, a stylish, black, short-sleeved shirt, a jaunty white straw hat, sporting earbuds, stepped onto the beach in front of me. He stood still, gazed out at the sea, and in a lovely tenor voice broke into song. The words were in Spanish and the melody unknown, but I grasped the tone and the feeling which to me sounded like an ode to joy.

It was the perfect ending to my hour long sit spot. He turned, walked over the bridge to MIA on his way to work. I was glad he took the time to stop, to enjoy, to nourish his body, mind and soul with this nature vista, and to share a song of celebration.

The Reward

Any hour long sit spot is good, but the ones done at the break of day are often among the very best. And even though I knew this point very well, it still took inertia shredding effort to plan the night before, to get up in the dark while others slept, and to find my way to a sit spot in dim morning light.

I knew enough behavioral psychology to realize that it was smart to reward this desired and health promoting behavior. Today my reward was to meet Kris and Steve, my brother and sister in law and my hosts on Isla, for breakfast. We wound up at a cozy new café in Centro. Along with a much needed cup of black coffee, I ordered one of my favorites, Yucatan style Huevos Motulenos, fried eggs over black beans, with green peas, chunks of ham and grated cheese on a tortilla with fried plantains on the side.

It was a good reward and I felt silent, satisfying waves of enjoyment spread through me as we sat together at the firm, brown wooden table and sipped, and ate, and shared our pictures, thoughts and impressions.

You can read more about Sit Spots in my book, The Stillness of the Living Forest:  A Year of Listening and Learning available through Shanti Press or at Amazon.