Morning light

My favorite time of the day at Blackwater Bluff is the early morning. My favorite meal is breakfast, which has a lot to do with that, I admit. I like waking early - about 4:30 or 5:00 and making coffee to sit in the dark for a while. I watch the flames come back to life in the wood stove as a new set of logs is piled onto last night's coal-bed. And I wait with Kai. We wait together for the sun to rise.

Sometimes I wander into the studio to check on drying pots or to see that the kiln fired correctly. I then slide open the door to the chicken house (pictured above) to collect the day's offering and to thank them, out loud, for their gift of protein with which I will begin my day. They seem to be glad of the thanks. It seems the right thing to do.

The fears which may have plagued me in the middle of the night seem to loose their power as I begin my meditation time - me, God, a candle. When I meditate in my meditation room, Kai, my dog, lays down in the hall outside so that his head just peeks over the edge of the open door. From there he stares at me as if he is encouraging me (because sometimes prayer is dull and I am tempted to blow it off).

Easter always follows Lent and sunrise (even if unseen) always follows the darkness and fears of night. The sun does not take away the fears, but it places them in context of what we can see around us so that the fears and the evils in which we are moving are offset by the Hope and Faith that is ours for the taking. As Theresa of Avila has so beautifully said, "all shall be well....all things shall be well...all manner of things shall be well."