4: a.m

4:00 a.m 

well before sunlight hints at arrival, earliest morning, and there is much to do as I match my pace with the slowly coming dawn. These are my most favorite hours, productive even as I move without hurry, never at a rush at all, and yet so much seems accomplished by the time they're gone. Usually I'm at at 4:00 a.m and this seems to have mixed reviews health-wise by many experts, with some claiming it has negative effects on certain measures of our body and mind. I don't dispute this, it's a practice not meant for everyone and seems to an hour that has mysteriously called for me awaken without a choice given to my reply. I am up generally well before my alarm sounds, as if the cells of my body have been awake for hours now and are only waiting for my conscious mind to join them. 

4 a.m is the time my body wakes me. 

this is when I first meditate, almost immediately after waking, and it's usually easy to slip into the gap between thoughts at this time, brainwaves still slow in motion and without the morning light to hurry them to action. It's by far the most quiet point of day, seldom any noise aside from the natural occurring sounds of nature, not even birds active now accept for occasional call from an owl in a tree nearby my window, a rare gift received and cherished when it's heard. Meditation has a quality of silence at this hour that is unmatched at other times, I sink easily in its depth, half an hour or more, mantra fading to a faint impression, and then nothing more but my own sense of pure and easy existence, beingness, simply the quiet nature of my soul. 

this alone is worth my waking early. 

from meditation there's motion, still without rush, there's plenty of time ahead, everything moves slow at this hour and my pace is matched to how the morning will unfold. Here, it's the ritual of preparing coffee, sun salutation while it brews, and then it's time for writing - 4:00 a.m is when inspiration calls for me to awaken, rituals performed, and now I listen, words appear, ideas form, and writing seems to happen on its own. That's a full day for me, everything that I would wish to happen has already occurred and the sun has yet to even reach me. So much ahead of me now...

and I pause, enjoying the still quiet, magical quality of the morning.

waiting for light to greet me, 

~

Peace, Eric