I have always, as I remember, been an early riser. I was one of those college students that actually got up early,often to the dismay of my roommate. There is something about early morning to me that seems more sacred than other parts of the day. I like being able to move through the house in darkness or semi-light knowing that my neighbors are still sleeping. I like the quiet of early morning and the brooding anticipation of what the day might hold. I may have inherited this from father who, even in retirement, rose before five a.m. to meet his buddies for coffee at a local diner. Unlike him, however, I do not want to talk to anyone early in the morning. I want to be held in the silence.
This past week in my little hermitage in the woods I enjoyed rising early even more than usual. I awoke to the vast expanse of the night sky filled with visible stars and planets overhead, of particular note Jupiter and Mars seeming so close you could reach out and touch them as they spooned with the crescent Moon. I made coffee and started a fire in the wood stove to take the chill of the cold morning. I moved about the small space in a contemplative fashion, noticing, touching, holding. Snuggled in my soft chair, I held the words I read with a special care. It is a way I would like to begin all mornings.
The poet Mary Oliver writes in a poem titled 'Why I Wake Early':
"Hello, sun in my face,
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety-
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light-
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness."
We are in the darkest days of the year here in the northern hemisphere. Children go to school in darkness and return in the waning light of day. Supper is always eaten in the dark. In these Advent days of waiting, of preparation, we rest in the darkness knowing that it holds a great gift yet to be discovered. We pray to be kept from 'ever-darkness'. We long to be held in the 'great hands of light'. May each of us start our day in happiness and kindness for our own sake and for the sake of the world.
Stay warm this weekend………………..