Matins

Morning has broken.  (Groundhog Day)

mat·ins

/ˈmatnz/

noun

1. a service of morning prayer in various churches, especially the Anglican Church.

   • a service forming part of the traditional Divine Office of the Western Christian Church, originally said (or chanted) at or after midnight, but historically often held with lauds on the previous evening.
   • LITERARY

     the morning song of birds.

Matins

~an excerpt from Morning Prayer Poem by John O’Donohue

1
Somewhere, out at the edges, the night
Is turning and the waves of darkness
Begin to brighten the shore of dawn

The heavy dark falls back to earth
And the freed air goes wild with light,
The heart fills with fresh, bright breath
And thoughts stir to give birth to color.

2
I arise today

In the name of Silence
Womb of the Word,
In the name of Stillness
Home of Belonging,
In the name of the Solitude
Of the Soul and the Earth.

(You can find the rest of this beautiful poem here.)

Over the trees at the back of the pond.

The main thing is this — when you get up in the morning you must take your heart in your two hands.  You must do this every morning.

~ Grace Paley

My morning practice starts with dropping in and listening.  Dropping into my body and asking, “What do you need today?” and dropping into my heart and listening.  I think the heart knows our questions without having to ask, but there are days a question, a feeling, a picture, a bhav or bhava might arise.  Sometimes the only thing that arises is Please.  Please what?  I don’t always know.  There are days when it’s obvious, days when it’s vague, and days when it is only a please.  It’s almost a form of metta and of poetry.

May I
May I please
Please may I
May we
May we please
Please may we
May all
May all please
Please may all

Reading it that way, I question who it is I/we/all might be trying to please in the phrase “may I please.”  It all depends on emphasis and how you read it, doesn’t it?

The morning crow flying by.

We have had some gorgeous sunrises and sunsets lately.  The sunrise, as you might recall, is also part of my morning practice (just as sunset is part of my evening practice).  In a kind of Morning Pages fashion, I’ve started writing about the sunrise again on Instagram.  Little bits of what the morning is like in the form of words.  It is a writing practice but it also feels like an offering or a gift of the morning that I’m sharing with others.  It reminds me of long ago, when the internet was brand new, and we got together in chat rooms (anyone else remember IRC?).  I formed a little group, all of us in various places around the world sharing what our sunrise was like that morning.  There was something magical about being able to see, in words, the sunrise through the eyes of someone else who was experiencing it at a different time and in their own way.  (For those that don’t know, it’s where the word “maidin” that I use in my email address comes from.  Short version:  “maidin” is Irish gaelic for “morning.”  It is pronounced as MA-jin.)

What the morning fog looks like in winter when it settles on the needles of a loblolly pine.

Today we’re awaiting the cold front and storms that brought ice, snow, rain, and tornadoes to parts of the country west of us.  I think they’ve named it Landon.  Whatever the name, it’s made a mess of things in various places.  Back in the Bogs, where I used to live (that would be NE Ohio), they received rain, then ice, and lots and lots of snow.  I imagine the Little Wookie and the Little Peanut will have a great time today using the snow gear they got at Christmas.  I hope they build a snowman or a snow fort.

An icy fog.

Our snow has melted for the most part.  I can still find little patches of it here and there in the woods and the shady spots that never see the light of the sun.  It’s been quite warm for the past few days.  Warmer still this morning (around 62°F).  There was quite an energy stirring outdoors this morning with the warmth, the humidity, the purplish clouds, and the wind.  Invigorating, powerful, almost uplifting.  Today’s warmth and rain ought to take care of any remaining snow.  Perhaps, if we’re lucky, we’ll get some new snow.  It doesn’t seem likely.  Our forecast is rain and more rain, perhaps changing over to ice and snow at the last minute before it sweeps out of here.  The heavy rain will make it nearly impossible for any snow to stick.

Frosting the back of the pond.

I’m going to leave it at that for now.  The next thing I want to write/post about would turn this into a rather lengthy tome.  It would be better to do it as a separate blog post.  There is probably no point in meeting out at the Point or the dock for sunset this evening.  The experts in such matters have declared it will be raining well into the evening, possibly overnight.  If the temperature doesn’t drop too much, I might go out there anyhow just to stand at the edge of the water and feel the elements of wind and rain.  Sunset is scheduled for 5:29 PM.  I guess it doesn’t really matter what time I go since we won’t be able to see the sunset.  So, if you’d like to join me, let me know.  I’ll meet you out there at a time convenient for you.

Please be safe, be well, and take a little time to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors (even it means just looking out a window).

Holly berries in the woods where the great-grandmother cedar lives.

A few of the 10,000 reasons to be happy:  1,966)  Holly berries showing off their pop of red in the shadows of the woods.  1,967)  Standing outside at sunrise this morning enjoying the feel, taste, scent, and song of the wild wind.  1,968)  Funky Fridays and dance parties in the living room.  (Visit xpn.org to listen in between 4 and 7 PM Eastern time.)  1969)  Marco Polo video app and being able to watch and listen to my grandsons as they sing and play.  1970)  Reaching the 1970’s.  😀

Wednesday’s pretty sky and clouds.