spring hopes eternal

“Since nothing is so secret or hidden that it cannot be revealed,
everything depends on the discovery of those things
which manifest the hidden.”

~ Paracelsus, Inner and Outer Worlds.

The spring season has finally taken hold- even among the resistant crags of northern New England. Warmer temperatures and green-tipped ashen branches have emerged, having fought through winter’s last howls. Late-winter coincides with the liminal season of Lent, culminating with Passover and Easter. Suddenly, as though released into light, the days are lengthened. Enduring times of fortifying against the elements are best seen as temporal. If it’s a subzero cold-snap, I’ll say, “we’ll be out of this in a week or so.” An awareness of the movement of time provides something of an assurance, that in a short while, the hardships will pass; oppression will not have the last word. Traversing into milder weather and vivid horizons heightens hopes. Such anticipation is a subtle, nascent act of faith. But awaiting the fruition of hopes sown cannot be passive: the waiting is as faithful as it is impatient. Intensely looking forward can be both hopeful and painful, in a simultaneous tension that motivates. We may await transitions into better times, yet we cannot know the durations of those times. Still, with great anticipation, liminality expects the temporal.

In northern climes, changes of seasons- and between them- are impossible to overlook. Daylight extends into evenings, and ubiquitous snow mounds dissipate. Things do begin to look different, and we can even exchange those careful, tentative vertical steps in favor of broad, slanted strides. It is quite natural for me to take note of all that can be sensed, between earthen aromas, the ocean, wildlife, and how we continue to adapt. Spring snowstorms have been abundant, but their effects cannot last for long. When a foot of snow comes down in April, even in billows, there is an accompanying sense of assurance in its tentativeness. The advance of spring will resume. This season, when it’s been possible, I’ve been outside photographing as much as I can. As though pushed outdoors, I’ve taken different cameras and lenses out with me, through blizzards and to waterways. Nearby rivers and ocean are especially compelling. There is a consoling sort of solitude, sensing skies, colors, and hearing water currents alive under thick layers of ice. The transfiguring natural elements inspire evolvement.

Essential as it is, aspirations generally do not make things move. Vision must be put to action. But wishing and working are not assured successful results. Yet, still more, defeats and missed opportunities are fulfilled when followed by continued and refined effort. Spring is designed to succeed winter. Seasons of perseverance must spring forth from deadened dormancy. It is as though spring forces us to hope. We have to, especially at the confluence of lengthened days and determination.

As instrumental as it is to survive, longing- in itself- does not change a situation. For example, between this recent winter and at least the last three, my income has decreased, while living and working in the same flawed, unsettled places. But the emergence of the spring season manifests a mysterious sense of the slates having been wiped clear. There’s a resurgence of energy to do more than simply survive- more than to simply cope, wince, and bear with all that is far less than life-giving. The season is fluid and fleeting, and there is much to accomplish; the lasting lasts only so long. Renewed, by definition, is not new. Calendars do not compute in reverse; such measuring devices remind us to look forward and anticipate. Though more journeys imply more setbacks and scars, they can be overgrown by new grasses, green leaves, and perennial growth. Recently while out photographing, I looked at the Presumpscot River streaming into the Atlantic. Large rocks standing fast in the surrounding rapids are testaments to solidity and faithfulness. My thoughts mused, what is fair to expect? In response to my own question, I replied, I say it IS fair to expect! Spring hopes eternal. Let the season unfold.








See also: raw new season.

habitude

“The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No, no, they can't take that away from me.”

~ George and Ira Gershwin, They Can’t Take That Away From Me.

routine

With my bedside clock attesting to something between half-past five, and six a.m., I wake to open the bath taps and switch on the percolator. With coffee mug aperch on the tub’s edge, I hear the morning news from the small radio atop the hamper. My tendency, as usual, is to look at the radio, as though to listen more carefully. Washed and dressed, following my emergence is a second cup of hot coffee, whose succeeding landing place is not a bathtub ledge, but a glass coaster on my desk. Awaiting from the previous night’s writing- precisely where I’d left it- is my journal. Nearby are the accompanying pencils and pens. This time, the radio is a larger one, and the tuned broadcast is classical music. Current events were washed down the bath drain with the old water. Behold, things must become anew.

With book open, some recollection proceeds, wavering between the journal, some variety of reflective reading, and tastes of coffee. I could never quite get into the habit of solid breakfasts. My mother would insist that I eat something, while she would sip coffee. Long into adult life, she toldme that my grandmother insisted upon the same, all the while sipping coffee. So the continuum carries on. With notations, reading, radio listening, and a third cup, I habitually hurry out to my scurried commute. In my journals, this is begrudgingly called the slippery slope to the grind, and I tend to just get to my indentures on time. When life is so very interesting, interruptions obstruct trains of thought. As a result, a compensating habit is to recollect the morning’s thoughts during lunch hour, with yet another writing routine.

The other day, during one of my coveted lunch hours, the topic of routines reached my written thoughts. Personal routines, wherever we are in our homes or occupations, have their respective rituals that run deep. These are so profoundly embedded that we only notice them when brought to articulate our own actions and rhythms. Very likely, each one of us will step into the tub or shower the same way each time, with the same leading foot, day after day. The way and methodology of how you wash your dishes or laundry will be as unique as mine. I recall marveling at how, during a power outage, I instinctively bathed by candlelight, while sipping cold chocolate milk from a coffee mug. The radio, of course, is battery-operated. The show must go on, after all!

transition

Our natural devotion to routines persists through the reality of constant change. It seems the very human ways in which we develop our own comfortable patterns exist in the context of transition. Establishing individual procedures and familiarities seem to create encampments for personal strength. If not personal strength, then at least as refuge and as a fixed point upon a map that grows gradually outdated by the day. Years ago, I had a neighbor who’d sit on the front steps with a cigarette, a coffee, and a newspaper just about every day. Coughing through her own smoke, she would say, “I can’t give up my cigarettes; they’re all I’ve got.” I think each of us can enumerate ingredients in our days that help us reinforce our sense of being. Small and portable keepsakes accompany me to work and on longer travels, reminding me of my roots. My habit has long been to wear blue, the color of trust and honesty, on days with workplace meetings, and this reminds me of how persistently we refine and build layers upon familiarities. We count on what we’re used to, and what puts us at ease.

Generating a sense of security parallels a subconscious comprehension of the undeniable constancy of change. We’re indoctrinated to expect transition, and taught to believe that changes are in the natural course of living. Developments and dissipations occur before our eyes. We visit new places, and watch as old buildings are torn down. Nostalgia challenges the accuracies in our perceptions. When portions of the past are preserved, the initial reaction is amazement. All the while, we’re told that change is part of life, it is to be expected, managed, and that everything we see is temporal. But in actuality, I dare say that we don’t really want things to change- and as they do, all those superficially understood axioms slip out of thought. In our thirst for constants, our stabilizing routines fly in the face of time’s advances. The proverbial carrying on provides a stationary ledge from which transition can be witnessed.

As involuntary as perpetual motion proves itself to us, this needn’t imply perpetual trepidation. The prospect of change is certain, but that need not constantly imply fear. Transition usually has us thinking of what we don’t want to experience, or lose; these tend to be the changes frustratingly beyond control. The natural response is to resist. But in so doing, there is missed momentum. The good in transition is in transfiguration, when changes are refined into something transcendent of circumstance. No easy matter, indeed, amidst an abiding bewilderment with realizations that our constants are nowhere as permanent as we think they are.

Navigating terrains of time, carefully negotiating cliffs of compromise, the controllable changes are to be discovered. Which transitions can be influenced by the individual human soul? How does an individual make sense of the unsympathetic constancy of transition- and even obsolescence? Perhaps the popular concern with appearance is far less critical than transcendent aspects of essence. This refers to what we are beneath and far above our physical and logistic limitations. We can surely affect our own essence, though our cultivation, through transition within. Rather than to view the soul as a spoke emanating from the hub of experience, consider the soul as the junction that draws together the spokes of an individual’s many experiences. Keeping in mind how we connect to the ultimate hub of creation, it is indeed the individual soul that is capable of connecting spectra of disparate influences and ideas.

Through the balance of the habitually persistent and the relentlessly changing, dreams transcendently continue. At least that is the hope. The desire to see vision fulfilled has a drive that is stronger than the taxing toll of time. Vision demands vigilance, and as truly as routine and change coexist, aspiration must transcend. Through storms and tides, the heart’s sense of direction must not be lost in defeat. Ceasing to dream is a great danger along the voyage through our earthly years. I’ll admit to savouring old familiar tastes and scenery, while simultaneously attempting to will improvements into existence that may not happen. Improbability, even at this stage, does not deter my wishes. And though I’ve had to reconsider definitions of success and accomplishment, I also know enough to persevere. That’s an old habit I haven’t lost.

early autumn

“Methinks the reflections are never purer
and more distinct than now at the season
of the fall of the leaf, just before the cool twilight has come,
when the air has a finer grain.
Just as our mental reflections are more distinct
at this season of the year,
when evenings grow cool and lengthen
and our winter evenings with their brighter fires
may be said to begin.”

~ Henry David Thoreau, Journal : 17 October 1858.

graphite alight

“You walk into the room with a pencil in your hand...”

~ Bob Dylan, Ballad of a Thin Man


A reprieve of stillness mercifully interrupted the day’s chaos. With notebook and pencil in hand, I sought the quiet sanctuary of an empty office. After having started writing, it became obvious to me that nothing cohesive was materializing. But I kept noting words- even if some of them were about feeling devoid of anything to say. I wanted some new thoughts, but that hour offered no written developments. So that’s exactly what I wrote. After returning home from work that night, those bedraggled words re-appeared as I opened my journal again. It seemed I’d been foraging for glowing embers using a pencil. It happens, ungratifying as that can be. The aspect for which I do express gratitude is for knowing to reach. Even a few scribbled sentences reveals forward motion.

Throughout this recent season of Advent and Epiphany, I’ve travelled to parishes throughout the region, providing music and creating contemplative spaces. Last Sunday night, during the long meditative silence, I glanced up from my sheet music to the front of the sanctuary. Lit only by scattered flickering candles, warm-toned icons met my gaze. These are the same icons that I’ve hefted across thousands of miles, beginning in Taizé, France. Occasionally, I am surprised by the austere mystery on the painted figures and faces. The Spirit invites. Such images are not sources, but brilliant reflections of light that confounds the dark. If darkness is prelude to light, then I must consider my failings and frustrations as prefatory to discovering.

Consider how a physical space appears transformed in our eyes, as our perceptions evolve. The same venue that witnessed anguished desperation can be the setting for elated recognition. Contrasting connotations can be noted anywhere: a café, a busy street, a schoolyard, a workplace, a room in a house. My apartment has been something of a stage for human drama. A downtown diner has been a repeating backdrop for scribing trepidations and for calligraphic catharses alike. Noting how a space is transfigured is to recognize changed realities perceived.

Amidst this reach for understanding is the unfathomable mystery of the origin of light. From there follows the wonder of how a spirit can be re-ignited. If to discover is epiphany, then to arrive is to be present: to alight. The act of alighting is to descend from one place and come to rest in another. Perhaps there is something to note, in my journey, about coming to terms with the Source of life without having seen the Eternal. In Tauler’s exhortation to endure in good cheer, we are to abound in good works for God’s sake. “And then,” he wrote, “shall you be made partakers of overflowing measure that runneth over on all sides.” This alighting touch of grace reaches the brimming human vessel, which “pours itself back again into its Divine source, from whence it has proceeded." In Tauler's description of this mystery, "all knowledge, love, perception are all swallowed up and lost in God, and become one with God." This grandeur challenges my own belief, in that it is more than I think I should ever expect. But perhaps that wouldn't be reaching as I ought. While trying to comprehend these things, why not keep working and keep the pencil moving on the page?

A good friend of mine is a historian of tool-makers and their utilitarian creations. His enthusiasm and expertise has breathed new life into our local Charitable Mechanics' Association- which dates back to Colonial times. Our friendship inspires in both directions. I am becoming attuned to the old ways of production, and he now uses antique typewriters. One day, as I spoke of the "tools of the spiritual life," he quipped, "you've said it all right there. Tools are spiritual." Indeed, we speak in two different senses of the word: implementation of a practice and the physical implements themselves. Surely, the actual tools of the writer (along with the builder and the mechanic) deserve their due. With these writing instruments at our ready, we experience the miraculous- and can create documentation.

As with light, our documenting tools help us liberate our thoughts, our stories, and our voyages. I have seen the worth of keeping the pencil moving- even while reaching and straining for description. And the tools do accommodate, no matter how cold; graphite cannot freeze. These exterior sub-zeroes teach us the value of continual movement. In time, the frozen granite steps will be bathed in spring rains and adorned with ivy.

highways

“I’ve seen by the highways on a million exit ramps
those two-legged memorials
to the laws of happenstance
waiting for four-wheeled messiahs
to take them home again;
but I am home anywhere
if You are where I am.”

~ Rich Mullins, Here in America


It took a lot of driving for me to begin collecting my thoughts. In fact, the changes began once my wheels left New England and took to the beginning of a 400-mile stretch of the New York State Thruway, en route to Chicago. Departing the Berkshires, the terrain gradually flattened as I continued westward. A prelude to the Midwestern landscape of fields extending to horizons under seamless skies. The smooth and broadened highways appear equally limitless in their reach. Necessary stops concern paying tolls, refueling, and taking breaks- not the deficiencies of road surfaces themselves. But just as the ocean forms the sea-navigator, road adventures shape drivers and lend character to the beaten track. Traveling through unfamiliar or less-familiar places allows for an ephemeral detachment that easily finds wonder in newness. Within that are the stories of travelers, and listening to these is part of the adventure.

Unlike local roads and expressways, interstate highways present a truncated world. At faster speeds that tempt higher extremes, it is a fleeting milieu of ramps and signs, occasional waterways and overpasses, and names that reveal traces of regional histories. And of course, radio broadcasts that vary with the travel’s progress. Somehow, through the standardized predictability of interstates, the lure of the open road emerges. And without wanderlust, my appreciation for my home town wouldn’t be quite as strong. An appetite for travel and for changes of scenery strikes a contrast with routine. Within that contrast is the cherishing of mobility amidst a restlessness for reaching rest-stops of repose.

Compared to my northern New England roads and streets, superhighways are not endeared to me. Of course, they are purposely uniform to span the continent; that’s the idea. Roads around where I live follow the sloping bending contours of terrain and water. Interstates were blasted through rock, not to be compromised by earthbound obstructions. Many straightaways were designed to double as level ground for emergency plane landings. Perhaps tollways are exempt from our aesthetic assessments. They get us where we need to go, and back again- allowing us to do that with the least travail. In cruise control. And the sameness of the roadside stops and motels are supposed to offer a sense of comfort. Some states refer to their service plazas as “oases,” as if throughways are deserts!

Highway systems, airports, and “intermodal terminals” remind me of how we want to cover distance as fast as humanly possible- and of how our conditions demand that we maintain the pace. It may be impossible to revert to the smaller and slower roads that traverse municipalities. Many towns have lost their cores of commerce due to sprawling development. As the larger, faster, newer, more predictable, and measurable become what is sought after, do the humbler places cease to matter? Is the memory of the unseen negated? Traversing and admiring the vast landscape on the way to Illinois, my thoughts were reminded of the many Main Streets I’ve seen when making the voyage by train. Towns and cities are bypassed by interstates, and are indicated only by sign. My vehicle is small and often solitary in the universe of thoroughfares. Fixtures and structures are few and far between.

Roads and places are stories in themselves. Listening is essential. Considering the discipline of attentiveness strikes a comparison between the patience of observation and the impatience of challenging speed limits. By traveling, it is possible to meet those who have sojourned even more. Seasoned travelers like to talk, and my random survey is to ask such people about their favorite places they’ve seen. One career Merchant Marine offered a vivid description of sailing into Manila harbor. He said it was the most beautiful sight he’d seen. Walking and talking in Chicago with an 88-year-old family friend permitted a chance to bring up my continuing query. Asking Manny about his favorite places from his road sales years caused him to re-enact his recollections for my listening ears. Now I have his stories to reflect upon- his word pictures of roadside fields of sunflowers in North Dakota, all bright and waving to the sounds of trumpeting geese. “Just like a horn section,” he said. He told these stories slowly, as though presenting a gift to me. Manny’s sense of patience is refreshing, and his demeanor reminds me not to hurry or wish away time. The long highway trips are so much about wishing distances away. “How many more miles to...” is the pervading concern. And it will surely manifest over and again in my thoughts, in drives to cover as much distance as possible- hoping to rest later.


Being able to reflect back upon travels and holidays indicates the advance of time and age. My elderly friend encourages me about how most of my years are ahead of me. Now I wouldn’t dare deny such encouragement to someone who is 88! I mustn’t let the advance of time become an excuse for pessimism. It is a fact of living. Remember that as students we are supposed to graduate; that is the goal of formal education. Thus, if one aspires to graduate, it is effectively a wish to mature and grow into the pilgrimage.

In my wonder at the ways faraway points may be connected by navigating highways, routes, tracks, and paths, the road begins to represent hopeful ways forward. Journeying becomes a tangible exercise that observes distance, difference, and proportion. As such, sojourning is essential for a life of learning and understanding. But at the same time, it’s something of an invitation to displacement. Consider hiking and camping. It forces the issues of how to be equipped, how not to be equipped, and what must be done without. But the venturing is pursued by many of us, even enjoying the simplified limitations- which permit for exploration. Indeed, there is spiritual geography as surely as geography may be part of spiritual practice.

Returning east a couple of days ago presented the resuming of mountains, valleys, and at last the mist of Casco Bay. On the way, I thought further about the “hopefulness of the road,” and what that signifies. It’s a present hope for what is too distant to see right now. As well, it is an advancement forth from what is past. Taking to the road is an act of trust in the destination, the means of transport, and of navigation. The vehicle has what it requires to get there, and my understanding of the roads and my sense of direction are sufficient. Even the desire to go forth is an engine in itself. With movement there follows motivation. And in launching out of the onramp, even into the night and across boundaries, the hope of the road endures.

ar hyd y nos

“O mor siriol, gwena seren
Ar hyd y nos
I oleuo'i chwaer ddaearen
Ar hyd y nos.

O'er thy spirit gently stealing
Visions of delight revealing
Breathes a pure and holy feeling
All through the night.”

~ Ar Hyd Y Nos, lullabye from Wales, 18th century


A wakeful night, and these keystrokes do not interrupt the silence, nor do these words require artificial lighting. Late hours well underway, the daylit roads past have since routed into dark passages. Stillness is not always a stagnant state- as it may appear. Transformative silence parallels the soul’s thirst for understanding and assurance.

In this heavily material-minded culture, additive approaches are more automatic than subtractive measures. Indeed, there is discipline in our constructs, but it is necessary to call forth a finer sense of discernment, in order to simplify the spatterings of our spheres. Quiet can blanket with consolation, yet also disarm as fears visit the silence. Often, peacefulness and unsettle coexist. This peculiar balance occurs to my thoughts, pacing my apartment in the dark. An old habit of many years has been to survey the world from my windows in the middle of the night. Even the parked cars look asleep, lined up in staid somber rows.

The reference point of being alive to the waking world while all is at rest has had many connotations for me. It is as though standing sentry, keeping vigil with my thoughts. But then again, there are other lit windows along the street. Then come reminders of aloneness in the world, that I am the sole witness to what I know. But then again, there are souls dear to mine in this life. Spectres of ideas invade my thoughts, attempting to convince me of my limitations. But then again, the night sky reveals expanse.

The hours around midnight are the darkest. The mind is at its most pliable, and awakening at its most prominent. Whence come the reminders that cause our tosses and turns? Perhaps an impression the Spirit wishes for us to remember. Or a message of something to be avoided. The stillness I find once awake presents an immediate mystery of dusk and shadowed slumber. And in reverence of the silence, I keep the radio at its slightest murmur. Indeed, such hours become a Gethsemane through which my thoughts both confront and reconcile. Past shipwrecked hopes come to mind. So many pursuits and projects dashed by unforseen treacherous shoals. But then again, by such misunderstood fortunes I’ll never know the shores from which my steps have been spared. Interiors have ways of closing in at night, walls becoming more apparent. Walking along the garden wall outside reminds me of how barriers seem to solidify and blur in the darkness. Some nights I’ll write a few words, lest they be lost by sunrise. Obscurity can bring the impenetrable to unveil ways to look ahead- even through wisps and shreds of clouds.

Several days ago, on a rare sunny day, I caught up with a friend over coffee. The venue was a strikingly sun-drenched garden café, yet this was simply a backdrop for his descriptions of his fears. The contrast was impossible to disregard. Yet this friend launched into societal and political anxieties with a passionate fervor- matching depth of misery with intensity of energy. Listening and chatting I didn’t dare judge, as in my own way I was masking worries of my own. Bad news has its own draw as a catalyst for racing minds, and my responses tried to point out what was good- even the bright weather. We both had plenty to talk about.

At my desk, a few nights ago, I interrupted my habitual reading and listening to the news. Indeed, it is good to be informed, but it’s also good to be cheered. And I wondered about what brings cheer. How strange to have to strain to imagine what causes joy. Consolation and inspiration. A sense of completeness, of recognition, of discovery. The satisfaction of accomplishment- in its many forms. Beauty, art, music, joyful expressions. Being among signs of creation. I tried to remind my friend (and interiorly myself) to try not to count upon things that do not encourage or strengthen. In so doing, it’s easier to remember that which is well and good, despite the currents. Admittedly, I pay for the wakeful nights with drowsy days, and although these are unintentional, there are thoughts to gather which I would not have found any other way.

no less

“Sometimes I think of Abraham
How one star he saw had been lit for me
He was a stranger in this land
And I am that, no less than he
And on this road to righteousness
Sometimes the climb can be so steep
I may falter in my steps
But never beyond Your reach”

~ Rich Mullins, Sometimes By Step


So many daily conversations, directives, and broadcasts echo the grimness of these times. At first, over recent months, I’d listen to stories of friends, colleagues, and neighbors- and we’d compare notes. It was a pronounced notice of economic hardship. What was overtly discussed has submerged into the unspoken din of perception. If the lens through which looking ahead is tainted by despairing obscurity, it becomes a challenge of looking forward without certainties. A test of perception- not simply of these times, but to realistically consider the past, and to reasonably position for the future. Looking on toward horizons prompts both exciting and dismaying experiences. I had to learn not to wish away my time- as I’d naturally do, banking the present upon hopes for better jobs, housing, and resources. An old habit. Along with that is an abiding assumption that better and later are synonymous.

The other day, during a great lunchtime discussion with a friend, we mused about whether the institutions in our midst are actually improving. It had me reconsidering what “getting better” means. In environments of lost or frozen wages, inflation, and weakened cultural foundations, “amelioration” must be transcendent of all that is in decline. How to look brightly at the road ahead - and at today’s doorstep. Beyond the nuts and bolts of bills and provisions is the flashlight of vision. In dark times, obscurity blends in discreetly, while light itself becomes even more noticed.

Coinciding with this undercurrent of uncertainty are new beginnings. Here in Portland, there are some tangible metaphors. The city is experiencing demolition and construction, such as it has not seen in decades. The concert of trenches, heaps, and roaring vehicles is fascinating. To change these public spaces in close proximity, structures must be systematically dismembered before anything new can arise. The wooden signs and mounted schematics populated by stick figures hardly give an impression of what it’ll really be like when all is said and done. These edifices and passages will be populated and snowed upon- and they will also age. Many will commit more sites to their witnessed memories. Institutions and structures move with the passage of days. The ocean and skies that swirl about this place are still where they’ve timelessly been.

Quite naturally, I look forward. Much of this month, so far, has been drenched in rain- yet the demolition, construction, and paving crews carry on with their missions. Ceasing to make an effort may actually require more strain than continuing with even the slightest momentum. Perhaps judgments of what constitutes an improvement becomes a form of resistance to comprehending the immediate as it is now. Appraising the worth of anything requires a grasp of context.

There is an ancient prayer of my ancestors which gives thanks for having been brought to a new season. In doing so, the words cause my thoughts to consider the differences between toughing it out and constructive acceptance. Navigating terrain and waters regarding their own terms, versus resistantly imposing a predetermined method. Letting friction become traction. My gratitude goes beyond appreciating being intact: it is good to know to look ahead, and to think back of the small portions of good guidance that continue with me now. While it’s not for me to know how much borrowed time is allotted to me, it is possible for me to cultivate wise perspective. And these are not all upbeat occasions- far from it. There is plenty to frustrate, but perhaps the useful side of discontent is that which brings us to bold moves. Living along the ocean shows me how roots must deepen and strengthen, as the winds whip up in torrents. And the battering storms eventually blow out to sea.

post tenebras

My time of day is the dark time...
When the street belongs to the cop
And the janitor with a mop
And the grocery clerks are all gone

When the smell of the rainwashed pavement
Comes up clean, and fresh, and cold
And the streetlamp light
Fills the gutter with gold

That’s my time of day.

~ Frank Loesser, My Time of Day (from Guys and Dolls)


In my most silenced and darkest waking hours, there is time to regather. With ambient light dimmed to crepuscular graininess, even the objects and structures in our midst emerge with softer edges. How are the pre-dawn hours so unlike those we call “late night?” Is there a zone of demarcation- like, say, 1 am? I find the noticeable significance when my awakening renews my alertness very early in the morning, before sunrise. Unlike a world-weary after-midnight wakefulness, my regained consciousness parallels hot water and soap, clean clothes and coffee. The windows are still blackened with night, and mirror my interior back to me. The world is still asleep. Muted sounds from my table radio, the sole permitted murmurs through the holy silence of the day that seems not to have started yet. There’s time, in these nascent hours, to reflect on the day passed and aspire to the one yet to form.

Yesterday’s newspaper sits on the dining table, rendered obsolete by the simple traversal of the night hours. At my desk, situated where I’d left them, my wallet, books, sweater, and writing things await. These inanimate objects in their respite, as the parked cars lined up outside at chilled ease- yet lingering with their owners’ residual imprint. What remains of us, when our instruments and habitations remain in our absence? Does your bicycle in the hallway, the notebook atop your desk, and your chairback-draped coat await only you? By the second cup of coffee, the grey light presents a black-and-white photo exterior. Perhaps in this essence of advancement there may be found the difference between the darkest hours before and after repose. More than a marking of time, it’s an alteration of perspective, the division between the winding-down of well-worn thought processes and the restarting of rested reasoning.

In these precious, slower, somber moments of the half-lit day, there is a sense of catching up with time’s pace, witnessing light’s increase. The scenery outside develops, reminiscent of images manifesting in darkroom processing trays. In the holy darkness, we do not wait in vain. These vigils recall creation, with light dividing the uncomprehending darkness. With such thresholds are new thoughts and reflections to accompany my routines through the work day’s structure and its daunting complexities. Such silent spaces are my Divine Hours, and the hushed darkness- those times of less apparent visibility- invite an expanse of inward roads.

I have never found myself begrudging the early-waking. The time seems to belong to me; it is uninterrupted and given gratefully to unstructured contemplation. Being awake is all there is to be concerned about. There is still time to dream. The slate is clear, hot coffee fresh, and the liminal gradations through dusk are navigated with certitude into light. As I learned in memorable wonder through my many monastic sojourns, from vigils and lauds the day silently emerges into being, and with the ensuing visibility a new admiration for the full sunlight that follows. Another set of very-early-morning memories rewinds my thoughts to junior high school years when I began to take to waking before 5am, hearing my Dad readying for work. We were both half-awake, he with his coffee and me with my cereal bowl, and the New York Times sports section before us. And cartoons. Sometimes, at the opposite end of especially prolific baseball days, we would go out walking after 11pm, to buy tomorrow’s Times. We were the vigilant and purposeful souls, awake before the rest of the block, save for- at least it seemed- the delivery trucks and Newsradio 88. This was the safest part of my adolescent day, and only now when thinking of it I realize the origin of all my good connotations and sensitivities attached to these hours.

Walking home last night, scaling the embankment along Pleasant Street, I remembered tracking those same sidewalks after groggy all-nighters in my studio at art college. During senior year, I worked a third shift in the dusty press room of the city newspaper, walking home to grind the ink off my forearms with abrasives. Of the divine darkness, there is no defined duration. Perhaps that cognizance of eventide remains with a soul, in varying degrees and times of day. Dionysius wrote how it is in this kind of lucent darkness that we long to be, “and through unsight and unknowledge to see and to know that which is above sight and knowledge, by very not seeing and not knowing.” About nine hundred years later, in the latter 14th century, there followed the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing. Perhaps the symbolic cloud is as much a place of uncontrived comprehension as it is a shield to counteract what Dionysius called the “oversensible.” In silence and in sparing shreds of light, the soul may “be borne aloft to the superessential ray of divine darkness.” At this moment of writing, early in the morning, I am borne aloft by an unseeing sense of expectation. Not really rested, but as always a clean slate. Now writing of this gift, I become more aware of the ingredients with which each day begins.