It’s Good Morning Britain and another Dawn Patrol. A not so bright, but so early that the stars are still up. It’s waking up to the world turned upside down and what can I say. At a loss for words about how to go on, except to try to do the same. Get up, dust ourselves off. Being brave does not mean you are not scared silly. I want to lie down and forget. Go to sleep. Wake me up when this is all over, I call out across the page but then, I’m no Sleeping Beauty. And life is not a fairy tale and we never know if there will be a happy ending. What I do know is that the sun is slowly but surely lighting the garden and the birds are singing out their morning prayers – they fret not, unlike me – and I remember again to make my mind my friend. I start with myself. May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be at peace. Then I will turn to you.
Month: May 2020
Stirred
I waited for the light and for the bird therapy. It was an owl who called first. Early morning delight. To-who, Tu-whit to-who. Peace passes all understanding. Stirred, not shaken with no surprise. Like just being there for me. The Jung of owls, going to something deep within me. Perhaps more than that. The Mary Oliver of birds. A pigeon cooed, – and we are far away from any statue, spoiling the moment – until I realised, pigeons are important too.
Work
Like me, you must be bored with the time of three that chimes throughout. Perhaps I will drop the context and keep you guessing. Like the times in which we live. Keeping us guessing about what next. It’s the having a not know mind and easing into the skin of not knowing that wakes me up. But it is not a fretting and a hand wringing and a why is this happening. In these early hours, it is another dawn that, in fact, all the therapy, including the butterflies who sat me on the porch in yesterday’s warmth, that has brought me to an earlier awakening, a beginner’s mind. There is a PS, of course. This still needs work – so I wait. I wait for the birds where the coming light will bring a stirring.
Diary
I can safely say that this is becoming a diary of mornings. An aide de memoir of looking back. I had made my way through the early hours quite asleep, and only woke after light arrived from the east, just after four, the cheerleader for the early sun. As usual, a plugged in podcast put the world to rights, sending some politicians packing for a while. What a shower. Emerging then into the morning, a good old brew, the porch was a highway of song, bird-flap, early bird-bathers splashing, sweet tunes from trees, playing the greatest hits. Early morning sun worshippers enjoying the honeyed light, they are the agony aunts dispensing wisdom, the wild bird-cast, breathing in me wildness, another kind of light.
Breath
It’s just gone two and another pre-dawn raid on the mind has taken place. Wakey, wakey is a bit much at this time of the morning but, as you know, this comes as no surprise. It’s daybreak without the light. It’s the new eye opener which I ease into and allow my mind to travel to other forced morning patrols. This one is way better than some where the memory of many, a pain, lodged deep inside has startled me awake. I have travelled far since then and I realise now that I almost love the silence of the house – like the night before Christmas, but without the mice – which is almost a soundtrack, a meditation. The inner journey is the peacemaker, meeting the poet, crafting the solace. I turn towards the breath, the fire escape.
Interior
Interiors awaken to the stillness. Honey-light breathes in the place that now sings in a chorus of impossible beauty. Hooked, drawn line of thought, bent out of shape, squiggles and shakes in giggles of wonder at infinite possibilities. Water-coloured, cloud-sky, tree-lined bird-dots the shape of the green-shaped South Downs from the train’s window-smudge. Muddy white sheep-lined field-green ploughed-brown train-reverie, remembering a childhood song of far away places, photo-yellowing with age.
…
Originally written as four stanzas and entitled Interiors, I have returned to this in a different format and made some changes.
Apples
Another meeting with an early morning muse and I woke up not entirely surprised that this is happening. The thought has been hanging around me for weeks. I have had it on the tip of my tongue – that I have been waiting for this. Like shit happens to people. Being out there with all the stuff of impermanence – as the Buddha said – and deep into it and then, when impermanence arrives, it’s not that much fun and no longer groovy. The theory of impermanence rides headlong into the practice. It’s like forcing me to come to the edge of what it all means. Leaning into it hurts like hell. The whole apple cart upset in an instant. And the apples just can’t be put back.
Holding
It’s not even two twenty. There are hours to go before life stirs and the sun hops into view, framing the curtains. Not sure if it hops. It does something, thankfully. It means life and breath. It means May mornings, warmth like opening a chocolate box. I like the caramel ones. Winter, now a memory, is no competition, with sunshine shortages, like rations. Just a few hours away, we will be washed in it, lightly cold at first, birdsong playing on wildlife radio. What’s there not to like about these days? The answer is not entirely straightforward, is it, – some rascal went and ruined everything – so we go back to the warmth of light, the early morning, windless. Like holding its breath. Like seventy five years ago. The guns silent at last and today our streets join in, empty of sound.
…
VE Day, 08.05.2020
Groovy
It’s just before four – yes, in the morning. I tried to get through the hump of the three but did not quite manage it, but lay in bed, imagining it was at least minutes before dawn. It doesn’t matter that it’s not because I am taken back to lazy Bulawayo afternoons, after a message from overseas. Living next door to Alice is on the turntable and I am spinning the hits. The Daily Serial is coming up, followed by The preacher talked to me, and he smiled. In another room, far away now, a listener has tuned in, transporting me, asking me if I still play requests. Of course. Any time. Up next and up-to-date, a real find. You get strumming along and hey, I love the original, but this one grooves and is just as easy on the ear. It makes you feel good to be alive and, remember, you heard it first, on this dial. Bulawayo 595.
Kind attention
The other day, just in front of me, crossing the road, were a mother and daughter. The daughter had a stick to see ahead of her. My heart leapt out to her, as she was helped across on her arm. This morning, awake like clock work at three, almost at war with my experience, the body unquiet with palpitations, a teacher* on a podcast helped to remind me that, in a way, this is exactly how we are now navigating the future. With a stick to see. The new way how we can read the next steps, how to manage the experience. To bring our mind and body together – this is huge – and to feel each moment like Braille and to see these heart-racing awakenings as trying to protect me. To somehow thank the fear – also huge – my heart in my mouth, trying to keep me safe. To hold this with kind attention and to begin to know what is going on in my mind.
School Of Blue 