The Very Best Sunsets

Nearly every clear evening in the Santa Monica Mountains there is a community of people that watches the spectacular sunset from hills and high places extending from the Pacific Palisades to Point Mugu. Like the angels who stand silently waiting for dawn on the beach in the movie “City of Angels”, people watch the sun set in singles, pairs and various combinations. Some accompany the show with iPod soundtracks; others bring a cup of coffee or tea to sip in contemplation. The mood is reverent and there is generally very little talking.

Though I have traveled to many places within North America and outside, I have never seen more beautiful sunsets then those that grace the Santa Monica Mountains skyline, including the fabled west coast of Maui. These sunsets sear the sky with brilliant orange and red colors that fade progressively through fuchsia and salmon to creamsicle orange and delicate pink. There may be fog pouring through the passes and canyons from the coast, clinging to the terrain and providing a mysterious counterpoint to the pulsing colors. There may be a brisk wind off the ocean full of bracing negative ions or there might be a dry, hot Santa Ana prickling the back of the neck. Bats flicker through the deepening twilight scooping up insects. Owls hoot and deer cautiously emerge from scrub oak thickets to graze the meadows and cleared spaces. Coyotes yip in anticipation of a night spent hunting. Time slows to a stream of kaleidoscopic present moments and through it all the sunset watchers stand rapt and transfixed.

For me an experience of internal space wells up and I imagine I can feel the slow turning of the planet. My consciousness expands and flies west toward the international dateline where the sun is still high in the sky and behind me to the east with its darkened skies and sparkling stars. I imagine my friends in Alaska as they continue to enjoy late afternoon on the Chena River or think of tourists on the coast of Ka’anapali still drinking in the sun. I can sense the 9 million people south of me in Los Angeles County, but my vantage point from the mountains and my focus towards the Pacific provides a sense of detachment and calm. Worries drop away and my mind becomes quiet and still.

In the summer it is possible to drive directly from work and still catch this moment of twilight peace but in the winter, sunset watching is strictly a weekend activity. Still, it requires mindfulness and intentionality to break away from a busy day and arrive at my special watching place overlooking the Malibu valley and Mount Crag. Actually, I have two favorite places oriented to this view. One is strictly a car park and the other requires a short hike through oak woodlands to a convenient rock ledge at the foot of Calabasas Peak.

How do you create a perspective during your day such that you can free yourself from the monkey-mind’s exhausting litany of what you need to do but haven’t done, who said what and how do you feel about it, and every annoyance that has been plaguing you since you woke up? You deserve a moment of peace. I highly recommend sunset watching as an antidote to the ego’s prattling. Even my high-energy chi-terrier, Darla, sits alertly but calmly in my lap as we watch the sun sink below the horizon. Her ears prick and twitch as they track the noises of the growing twilight but like the rest of the sunset watchers, she does not move until the sun is gone and the sky is awash in the deepest purple.