Earlier Dawn

An ever earlier dawn:

there's an ever earlier dawn approaching, from February until somewhere in mid-spring we gain an average of 3 minutes of light per day, slowing down a bit in early summer until the trend is then reversed through fall and winter. Yesterday, with a leap year adding an extra day to February, there was the first hint of sunrise as I was finishing my earliest walk. In a weeks time I will be catching the rays of true dawn, mornings will be significantly warmer, plant life reaching a showing bloom, and animals stirring in care of their young.  

winter has come to an end, 

and even if it has a last grasp of snow and chill there's an ever earlier dawn that offers me it's warmth and light. This always feels like an emergence for me, that after long months of shorter days and bitter cold, not missing a single day of predawn walking, and now I've earned the grace of an earlier dawn, sunlight in a spectacular display of a new day's arrival. 

emerging from darkness into light. 

my life received in seasons. 

yet this was a winter where I fully embraced the dark, bundled against the cold in warm layers of clothing as well as an emotional resilience of curiosity and awe. I set out to explore my world through all it offered, accepting my own interior conditions as they match the seasonal landscape that I walked through every morning. I fell in love with the darkness and cold, no longer believing them to the absence of light and warmth, but harboring their secrets, revealing mysteries that can only be told though full acceptance of what a season offers. Cold and warmth are not true opposites, they are a seamless expression of the sun's touch - just as darkness is the waiting capacity for light to show. 

the secret, is that life is displayed through  the grace of seasons.

and right now, 

there's an ever earlier dawn. 

~

Peace, Eric