Darkling Mornings

 

We enter the time of year when the mornings are slow to rise. We wake when it's completely dark. The seasonal shift is starting. It may not feeling like it outside yet - wait, was that a drop of 3 degrees overnight? A little happy dance proceeds in my head. Still, it comes slowly. Subtlety. Do we notice? I try to shake the vibes of summer off with some autumnal decor inside my home, but it only goes so far. It fools me inside, but stepping out I am jolted back to reality.

Atmosphere. That's one of my favourite things about Autumn. We are moved into the atmosphere of warmth and spices, sweaters and academic beginnings. I always loved the start of a new academic year with new pens, notebooks, and fresh classes. Do you ever miss anything about a new school year or are you glad those days are well behind you?

Isn't there something mysterious and inviting about a beginning? Even if it's not a beginning for us, we are well out of school perhaps, and yet, a seasonal shift can remind us of new beginnings. We can make a new beginning anytime, mark the calendar. No need for a new year, simply call it a new day. The Autumn season of fruitfulness and harvest reminds me that it's something new (the paradox of being annually new to us, the revolving cycle we seem to need reminders of) and something mysterious in that aspect of life. As T.S. Eliot wrote - But our beginnings never know our ends!

Yet each start to a season gently reminds us that a beginning is hopeful. A darkling morning is shrouded in darkness. It may seem like the darkness goes on and on, but it doesn't. Just below the horizon is a star that will rise as a gift of a new day. And every day is a new beginning. We start everyday not knowing how that day will end. Sure, we have our calendar and schedules set. We plan it out. Yet there may be a good or perhaps an unwelcomed interruption that takes us off to an alternative.  

Welcome Autumn. Welcome darkling mornings. I reach for my thick black notebook and deep navy pen to sketch out the jots of my mind. Balancing sips of coffee and ink marks on the pages, I hold dear these quiet spaces that the start of a day can give me. Meditative, thoughtful, mind awakened. Reflections on the past and present - they collide on the page sometimes in an ink explosion fueled by the mind at work. It's here in the darkling space that I prepare most diligently for the light and duty of a new day.