Tag: Morning

Get Up, All of You

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Little girl. Old girl. Old boy.
Old boys and girls with high blood pressure and arthritis,
and young boys and girls with tattoos and body piercing.
You who believe, and you who sometimes believe
and sometimes don’t believe much of anything,
and you who would give almost anything to believe
if only you could.
You happy ones and you who can hardly remember
what it was like once to be happy.
You who know where you’re going and how to get there
and you who much of the time aren’t sure you’re getting anywhere. “Get up,” he says, all of you – all of you! –
and the power that is in him is the power to give life
not just to the dead like the child,
but to those who are only partly alive,
which is to say to people like you and me
who much of the time live with our lives closed
to the wild beauty and miracle of things,
including the wild beauty and miracle of every day we live
and even of ourselves.
~Frederick Buechner -from Secrets in the Dark

He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”).
Mark 5:41

I usually awake each morning before 5:30 without an alarm, just as I did in high school, through college and medical school, during my work years and having-babies years.

Now, in my retirement years, for no reason at all, I still wake up early.

I just can’t help it. I trained myself to be able to get up early, to do chores, make kids’ breakfasts and lunches for school, commute to work, be ready for what I needed to do and be that day.

Even now that I don’t have to, my body still gets up.

But my brain and my soul are slow to wake, and some days they prefer to stay under the covers, closed off to all that wild beauty within and beyond me.

I have no time to waste being only partly alive.
I need to listen to the summons: “Get up!”
And right now, I need to get up,
– all of me –
especially that full of miracle and wild beauty.

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Morning Has Come Again

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when the sun peeks over the horizon to greet
the day and spread golden honey warmth
to the dark, sleepy earth

when the birds begin to stir and twitter
and tune their songs to one another

when the trees rustle as the morning breeze
opens her eyes from slumber, and the dew is heavy
on the blades of grass

when I know morning has come once again
and we are not lost to the night, even as we
are not lost to the day

light dawns, and I can move again
breathing in streams of fresh morning air
lighting a candle for rejuvenation
and praying the day in with ginger and
salt and clay

oh how lovely it feels to be alive
how magical to wake with the light
and live
~Juniper Klatt “when the sun” from I was raised in a house of water.

Each morning is a fresh try at life,
a new chance to get things right
when our yesterdays are broken.

So I drink deeply of the golden dawn,
take a full breath of cool air and dive in head first
into luminous light and bushels of blossoms,
hoping I too might float on the morning magic.

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The Miracle of Each Morning

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The staccato rain on the roof
The sudden parting of clouds

The silent worship of morning
The kettle’s steamy clicking on the stove

The stellar jay defending the nest
The gang of crows flying off

The 100 bones of feet
The climbing of mountains

The slenderness of throat
The fullness of hymns on Sunday

The meeting of you
The knowing of me

I tell you, it’s a miracle
~Peg Edera, “It’s a Miracle, I Tell You” from Love is Deeper than Distance

bluejay photo by Josh Scholten

How many times each day do I wonder at the miracle that is each breath, each step, each meal, each good night’s sleep, each wakening, each song, each hug?

That it happens at all is a miracle, I tell you.

And why do we notice it most when it is no longer a given – when we have suddenly lost the daily gifts we take for granted.

So we who wake on an ordinary Sunday today,
our home and church and family not in the path of a fire,
our communities not in danger,
we thank God for His daily miracles
and pray that His people will help
comfort and care for those who weep.

Spoonful By Spoonful

barnstormingblog2 Comments

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons…
~T.S. Eliot from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Tokyo Starbucks
photo of Edinburgh street, taken from Starbucks

I read recently that Starbucks’ business has suffered a loss of customers because of longer waits for service, and price increases for custom-ordered drinks that take more barista time to create.

I have been a pretty loyal coffee customer since Starbucks opened their first shop at Pike Street Market in Seattle over 50 years ago. I have visited countless Starbucks, including one in the bustling Narita Airport in Tokyo and an upstairs shop on a drizzly corner in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Over that time, I’ve graduated from brewed coffee from dark roast beans to dark roast decaf beans. There is a difference between 20 year old me and 70 year old me; caffeine is no longer my friend.

Over a decade ago, I was buying my usual twice a month supply of decaf coffee beans from my local Starbucks shop. The barista looked at me apologetically and said “have you heard?”. She said my favorite blend was being phased out and soon would no longer be available. 

This completely disturbed my decaffeinated equilibrium.

I immediately wrote to the “Starbucks Customer Care” website to see if they really do care about their customers.

How could it be that I became so attached to a particular brand, a specific taste, a daily routine that something so insignificant in the scheme of things should become so significant to me? 

I was upset at myself for being perturbed by this.

So what if I’m in a minority of coffee drinkers who can only handle decaf because caffeine now makes my pulse race and my hands jittery.

So what if I’m part of an aging cohort who may not be all that important to the corporate world bent on marketing the newest taste trend to the young and fashionable. 

So what if I’m ridiculously dependent on that 5:30 AM home brewed cup of coffee, not because of needing a drug to wake me up, but because it is something I have done happily for years,
measuring out my days spoonful by spoonful.

I am indeed grateful for routine, and in my own grudging way, I can learn to be grateful for change. I suppose I’ll could get used to another blend if I have to (please, not too “herbal” or “flowery”). 

But life will not be the same – the evenings, mornings, afternoons I know so well.

It’s just tough to adapt when each morning has been defined by “Decaffinated, yet rich and well-balanced with a dark cocoa texture and a roasty sweetness, like the flavor of a fire-roasted marshmallow after you pull off the darkened cap. To be enjoyed with chocolate truffles and dinner guests who stay late.”  

Wow, they pay people to write stuff like that.  

I guess it isn’t as appealing to say “to be cherished with morning oatmeal by farmer physician poets who can’t handle caffeine.”

Too bad. We’re actually a pretty nice bunch. 
All one of us.

Postscript: My favorite decaf blend was phased out but later reintroduced and became one of their best sellers. I guess we’re all getting older…

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Only the Light Moves

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Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, 
and by degrees 
the forms and colours of things are restored to them, 
and we watch the dawn 
remaking the world in its antique pattern.
~Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
~William Wordsworth from “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”

Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. 
Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.
~Leonora Carrington

Looking for God is the first thing and the last,
but in between so much trouble, so much pain.
~Jane Kenyon from “With the Dog at Sunrise”

In the moments before dawn
when glow gently tints
the inside of horizon’s eyelids,
the black of midnight
wanes to mere shadow,
the fear of night forgotten.

Gloaming dusk transposed to gleaming dawn,
its backlit silhouettes stark
as a dark hurting earth
slowly opens her eyes
to greet a new and glorious morn.

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The Magical Frontier

barnstormingblog4 Comments

Between the March and April line —
That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates,
Almost too heavenly near.

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,
The maddest noise that grows, —
The birds, they make it in the spring,
At night’s delicious close.

It makes us think of all the dead
That sauntered with us here,
By separation’s sorcery
Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,
And what we now deplore.
We almost wish those siren throats
Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart
As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
So dangerously near.
~Emily Dickinson “The Saddest Noise”

Every spring
I hear the thrush singing
in the glowing woods
he is only passing through.
His voice is deep,
then he lifts it until it seems
to fall from the sky.
I am thrilled.
I am grateful.
Then, by the end of morning,
he’s gone, nothing but silence
out of the tree
where he rested for a night.
And this I find acceptable.
Not enough is a poor life.
But too much is, well, too much.
Imagine Verdi or Mahler
every day, all day.
It would exhaust anyone.
~Mary Oliver “In Our Woods, Sometimes a Rare Music ” from “A Thousand Mornings”

What does it say about me that a only a few months ago, in the inky darkness of December mornings, I was yearning for the earlier sunrises of spring. Once we’re well into April, the birdsong symphony alarm clock each morning is no longer so compelling. 

This confirms my suspicion that I’m incapable of reveling in the moment at hand, something that would likely take years of therapy to undo. I’m sure there is some deep seated issue here, but I’m too sleep deprived to pursue it.

My eyes pop open earlier than I wish, aided and abetted by vigorous birdsong in the trees surrounding our farm house. Daylight sneaks through the venetian blinds. Once the bird chorus starts, with one lone chirpy voice in the apple tree by our bedroom window, it rapidly becomes a full frontal onslaught orchestra from all manner of avian life-forms, singing from the plum, cherry, walnut, fir and chestnut. Sleep is irretrievable.

Yet it would be such a poor life without the birdsong.
Even so, too much is … a bit too much.

I already need a nap.

photo by Harry Rodenberger

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Under My Eyelashes

barnstormingblog1 Comment
9/24/2023 -7:12 AM
9/24/22 6:55 AM
9/24/21 6:34 AM
9/24/20 7:22 AM

You can
die for it-
an idea,
or the world. People
have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound
to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But
this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought
of China,
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun
blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises
under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?
What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it
whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.
~Mary Oliver “Sunrise”

9/24/19 6:55 AM
9/24/18 6:50 AM
9/24/17 7:03 AM
9/24/17 (later)
9/24/17 (even later~)

Over the years, I have not missed many early autumn sunrises – most I have not recorded as they are often gray and rainy.

This particular day of September – the 24th – has been a treasure trove of color and cloud patterns and light for the last decade. Today I share these with you in their variety and beauty.

Every day, let us watch the sun rise with its light under our eyelashes – the fire of happiness illuminating us all as morning breaks open, like the First Day.

9/24/16
9/24/15
9/24/14
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The Dewy Cheek of Day

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The red east glows, the dewy cheek of Day
Has not yet met the sun’s o’erpowering smile;
The dew-drops in their beauty still are gay,
Save those the shepherd’s early steps defile.
Pleas’d will I linger o’er the scene awhile;
The black clouds melt away, the larks awaken–
Sing, rising bird, and I will join with thee:
With day-break’s beauties I have much been taken,
As thy first anthem breath’d its melody.
I’ve stood and paus’d the varied cloud to see,
And warm’d in ecstacy, and look’d and warm’d,
When day’s first rays, the far hill top adorning,
Fring’d the blue clouds with gold: O doubly charm’d
I hung in raptures then on early Morning.
~John Clare “Daybreak”

You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.

But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?

You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.
~Linda Pastan “Imaginary Conversation”

How to begin each day like the first day, rather than the last…

It would mean unbridled awe and astonishment, hung in raptures. Look Not only gratitude that the world exists, but also grateful that I exist within it.

Instead of living as if this were my last day, I want to be newly created and dew-baptized in amazement – just like my first day.

Gathering the Heavens

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With my arms raised in a vee,
I gather the heavens and bring
my hands down slow together,
press palms and bow my head.

I try to forget the suffering,
the wars, the ravage of land
that threatens songbirds,
butterflies, and pollinators.

The ghosts of their wings flutter
past my closed eyes as I breathe
the spirit of seasons, the stirrings
in soil, trees moving with sap.

With my third eye, I conjure
the red fox, its healthy tail, recount
the good of this world, the farmer
tending her tomatoes, the beans

dazzled green al dente in butter,
salt and pepper, cows munching
on grass. The orb of sun-gold
from which all bounty flows.
~Twyla Hansen “Trying to Pray” from Rock. Tree. Bird. 

the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging—

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
~Mary Oliver from  “Morning Poem”

A Sabbath sunrise becomes unspoken prayer –
I open my hands and arms to it,
closing my eyes, bowing my head,
giving myself over to silent gratitude.

Gathering up the heavens, the sun moves
from subtle simmer to blazing boil.

I trudge forward every day,
each step in itself a prayer answered;
thankful I can still take a next step,
and a next, until I reach tomorrow
and again after that, I celebrate
there will be a next tomorrow.

Amen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovpjQPWn2rQ
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Why Morning is Best

barnstormingblog1 Comment

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,
then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso—
maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—

but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,
dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,
and, if necessary, the windows—

trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.
~Billy Collins “Morning”

Dawn is a new gift every day,
even when the previous night was sleepless.
I rise early to see just what might happen
as you never know what might be
just over the horizon.
Soon we’ll round the solstice corner
to face the encroaching darkening.

So why do I bother with the rest of the day?
Morning is always the best…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxClQ_pInzc
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