An aubade

When sitting at my desk at the Phoenix office, I face south; to my left are three large glass windows through which I see Camelback mountain and the east side of town. At this time of the year, I am at work before the sun rises. It is also nearly always cloudless in January. As a consequence, I see a lot of sunrises, which hit me right in the retinas and cause instant elation. No matter how tired or lugubrious I am it quick dissipates like fog in the brilliant radiance of sunshine.

I suppose this is how a cat must feel sleeping in a sunbeam. I also wonder this is the main reason why the ancient ones held morning rituals to welcome the dawn. It feels downright numinous to see and feel the sunlight, particularly after the dark and the cold of night. By now ‘Sunrise’ is an archetype,  associated with hope, birth, and beginning.  When I wake each morning I try to remember to pause for a quick thought or prayer of gratitude. I don’t always remember to do so, but a witnessed sunrise always prompts me to thoughts of thanksgiving.

In my youth I didn’t care for sunrises, mostly because they were too early. I preferred sunsets. As I’ve aged I’ve grown to appreciate having a the start of a day over its end.  Maybe that’s why old folks tend to get up early; it allows them to be one with the dawn.

There isn’t anything more to say on the matter. As I sit in my chair watching the morning sun mount the sky Helios-like I feel the quiet satisfaction of something that is beyond words. Perhaps a poet could capture it better than what I am trying to write.