About four years ago I started getting up an hour earlier in the morning. In the early morning our house is quiet. I love to just sit and listen to the silence. It’s like a healing peace. Sometimes dreams linger in my head and I work through them. They linger and color our mood. What are dreams? Where do they come from? What sort of toxins get into our brain that are expelled through these night visions? Is it just the cares of life? Emotions working out their vibrations, rippling out from our sub-conscious? Whatever they are, paying attention to them for a few minutes in the morning gets me past whatever they meant to tell me. Getting up early helps me to find balance at the beginning of the day. Sometimes I write. Sometimes I pray. Sometimes I just sit.
Morning is a good time. Getting up early creates a space that is not rushed. It gives me time to remember how precious life is. How good simple pleasures can be – the smell of coffee, a flickering candle’s glow, the early light of dawn breaking on the horizon. Giving yourself that extra time before the day begins to feel peaceful is so nurturing and enriching. Early morning should always be spent like this.
But it doesn’t always turn out that way. To get up early you have to get to bed at a decent time the night before. You have to plan ahead and be intentional about how you will order your day. Otherwise the day just sort of happens. It can spin out of control. You hit the snooze button one too many times. Get a late start. Suddenly there’s no time for breakfast. You’re already late before you even get started. On those mornings it seems like you never get back to feeling in charge of your own life. You just keep responding and reacting to things that happen to you, but it feels like your life is out of control. By the end of the day you feel beaten and used up. Before you know it, it’s time to get ready for the next day.
So many things have to come together to achieve a morning as beautiful and peaceful as this one.
