354: Getting in touch with my inner early riser

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

~ Rumi

Another early morning.  It’s not accidental, this early rising.  I’m getting back in touch with my inner early riser, the woman who enjoys the transition between night and day, who delights in watching the sky lighten as this part of the earth spins around towards morning.

I didn’t realize there was a full moon today until I looked out at the pond upon awakening this morning.  Bo and I have started The Artist’s Way this week, and I should have been doing my morning pages first thing, but I couldn’t resist the pull of the moon.  The morning pages would wait.  The setting moon would not.

I hauled out my tripod and camera, and had fun playing around with the manual settings on the camera.  The one thing I forgot was to adjust the ISO so there would less noise.  I had to fix that problem in Photoshop.  Lesson learned.

Once the moon set, I saw no reason to go back inside right away.  The mist and the early sunlight enticed me away from those morning pages.  Who can resist such beautiful light and shadows?  Not me, that’s for sure.

It’s nice to see the sun and blue sky once again.  I am so over the grays and glooms, the clouds and storms.  That’s why I didn’t watch the news or do a 9/11 post yesterday.   I’ve had my fill of sadness lately.

We had some pretty dramatic skies on Saturday and Sunday.  The kind that loom threateningly over the landscape.

Eventually all of the drama played itself out in some heavy downpours, gusty winds, lightning, and a few loud claps of thunder.

What made it all so unusual was that it was moving east to west.  Thankfully, that spinning low is out of here.  Now we await the next cold front.

A shaft of sunlight peeks through the clouds just before sunset on Saturday

As for those morning pages, I did get to them after my walk.  As mentioned in a previous post, the morning pages were the undoing of my prior attempts at The Artist’s Way.  I’ve had a few practice sessions before beginning today.  I am already starting to appreciate the benefits of emptying some of the chatter out of my head before I begin my day.  It’s early days yet, but I do think my approach this time includes a better attitude.  An openness or willingness I didn’t have in the past.  I am even looking forward to my first artist’s date.

Reaching for the sky

I have another reason other than the morning pages to nourish and encourage my inner early riser.

I’ll tell you all about it.  Soon.  🙂

(The “Spirit” photo above was processed in Photoshop and Picnik.  I used one of Picnik’s Pirate Textures to get the jewel effect.)

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