I came across this beautiful meditation in my beloved mother Dorothy’s
book, One Thousand Beautiful Things. Read it aloud — it’s entrancing:

Autumn Sunset

by Henry David Thoreau

The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all the glory and splendour that it lavished on cities, and, perchance, as it has never set before — where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk to have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like a boundary of Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening.

So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn.