While I Slept moves powerfully and poetically
from an expression of gratitude for personal safekeeping
to a broadened awareness of relationship with the universe,
with God,
and with all humanity.
Thirteen breathtaking photographs of day breaking over the ocean
expand the poetic message inviting the reader to return
again and again for deeper insight.
Yesterday
If you are a beach lover, this is a must have book! If you have
ever been surprised, this is a must have book! If you have ever seen the
sunrise, even once,
While I Slept
will bring back the memory as if it were yesterday!
I passed through
the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the first time in 1974. I saw no sunrise
then but a harvest moon, so very full...cat’s eye yellow. I crossed Hatteras
Inlet by ferry absorbing the moon’s color into my very soul. Such beauty! It was
always the moon that made me say “ahh” but so did the flounder on my hook! And
then came, not sunrise, but daybreak and oh, what a daybreak.
As I turned in bed, a sliver, just a sliver of...not light, but red-orange, caught my eye. I thought “it” would happen too quickly for me to go and wake anyone. So I grabbed my camera and just started shooting. Over twenty-two minutes I took thirty-six photos knowing that with the next click it would be over! All the while, what I really wanted was to share it, to shake someone out of sleep, speaking softly, “Come and see!”
The words came later. Taken over by the beauty, the memory of the morning, they just came out of me. A poem, an essay, a prayer. The reader will have to decide. I call the words a gift. And they have enriched my life.
Now I share and hope the book enriches your life, also.
Nancy E. Koehler