Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who made the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the 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.

~Mary Oliver

Sometimes we decide to bury a longing that seems impossible to fulfill because we cannot bear the pain. The danger in doing so is that we forget the name of that longing. and if we cannot find it again, we lose a piece of ourselves. Home is, of course, not simply a physical place. It is a sense of belonging, of remembering and being remembered, put back together again when our journeys into the world have fractured and fragmented our sense of self. To live deeper we have to go to places that help us find a slower rhythm. But simply going to these places is not enough. We have to let these places touch us, change us, speak to us.  ~Oriah Mountain Dreamer