Dawn in my pocket

Finding the answers above the clouds

The cool air exhales slowly down the valley. Morning mist hugs the contours of life, softening the edges for this small town like a winter scarf. I can see this sunken cloud from up here. It’s a rare sight on the Mediterranean. It’s a full yoga stretch. The earth is in child’s pose. Hill tops like turtle backs float above the thick cloud. Two worlds, of valley and mountain, are cocooned in the ethereal whisper of dawn.

This mist has a therapeutic vibe, slowing the week right down to near zero. It teaches me to look more inwards than out just for the moment. The mist is a guardian of the soul. A teacher of the spirit. 

I look up. The sun is desperate to break through but the cloud keeps on winning. 

On the other side of the valley facing the coast, sunrise was nearly sunless. Above an invisible horizon a numb sky was an artwork of layers of contrasting greys, painted uniquely in muscular horizontal brush strokes. The sun hardly reached the horizon. All muzzled up, the only way you knew it was there, was an inverted halo that floated on the sea in soft metallic plate grey, miles and miles from here.

It is incredible how the view can vary so much. And if the sky and the light can oscillate so, then I understand how our mood, our energy and our courage to stand up to our own uniqueness can swing from one day to the next as well.

Aren’t the chocolate makers brilliant at convincing us that they have the answers to these natural oscillations? That they even hint that they are the owners of some of our pleasures in life with their mouth-watering adverts?!  They say a couple of pieces of dark chocolate are good for you with vitamins, caffein and serotonin for a mini happy buzz but the answers we search for are in the dawn of every day and it's free! The more we visit it, the more it resonates. I don’t think the winners are the early birds that catch the worm. It’s making time for the break of day that resets goals, patience and it reconciles our need for peace. 

The sun is the constant, it gets up and gives us a new start. Each day is a clean break. A clean slate to try again. Forget new year’s resolutions, despite the fun of new year, every dawn is a New Year’s Day. Today can be the first day I listen to that 2-minute meditation on Insight Timer using my headphones, even if I only have a 30-minute lunch break. It's daft waiting until 1st January to break habits when we are tired and hungover from lack of sleep! It doesn't make sense. New Year's Resolution could be to write all you've done and the lessons you have learned. We can find that evening class  today or book a fifteen-minute shoulder massage at the gym, start walking to work, swop a piece of chocolate for half an apple, surprise ourselves at the taste of fresh fruit.

Dawn is so inspiring, I want to catch it and put it in my pocket, or wear it like a perfume all day. Maybe we do in a way, if we get up for sunrise and see the darkness fade, the black silhouetted trees against an ink blue sky, hear the first bird sing alone, we carry the calmness like a fragrance through to bedtime. I can’t believe all those years I missed sunrise!

The fact that each day is a new dawn to start over shall be good enough. Or even, as I thought today, as I can’t get dawn in my pocket, I will write about it and keep these words there instead. 

Lots of love

ethereal twilight by Pipp.