It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Sighing

The memory of warm earthy wafts of coffee wakes me from the dead of sleep each morning. I spring from bed, make the blessed coffee, snag a throw blanket, cozy up with my dog, and sit near the big west facing window in my living room cradling the sacred steaming mug. There is a bank of tall pine trees that fills in the the view of the right side of the window; but on the left, the view opens up to the beautiful green -not too distant- rolling hills. Although the main event of the sunrise is illuminating the east, I catch the morning light shine brightly on the colors of the west. I love watching the hills change in character. How the enlivened sun slowly wakes up the new day, taking time to stretch out its beaming arms of golden light. How the sharpness of the first light reaches towards the flat blue shadows of the night and turns them into bright electrics greens full of texture and adventure. The move from darkness to light nudges at my soul, and wakes up something within me. The simple ritual of paying attention to the day stirs up a feeling that everything is possible.

After its initially slow sprawl, the sun makes quick work of indiscriminately warming up the day. A fleeting halo of transparent pink traces the outline of the hills for just a moment. At the blink of an eye cotton candy pink shifts to a delicate purple before its final transformation, a wall of blazing aqua blue.

I take a sip of coffee, roll out an invisible red carpet of gratitude for my dad (who roasted the coffee beans I make coffee with), and then I write something- anything that feels as honest as this rising sun. Sometimes it is worth sharing, sometimes it is worth saving.

There are things we do that wake us up to the beauty of the world, the subtly of who we are, and the lives we lead - these are the rituals that sustain us. These treasured moments break up the momentum of routine, worry, uncertainty, expectation, and provide us with precious space to imbue life with care and reverence.

Routines give us order, efficiency, and a sense of accomplishment. They make our lives feel essential and important and constructive day to day. They are a way to keep track of time, of life, to ensure that ability turns to action, and nothing into something. In a sense routine has become the barometer for measuring our own importance.

And yet, it is the rituals we choose that make us feel most alive and joyful. Ritual, as little and inconsequential as they may appear, turn the the flat blue shadows of an un-examined life into a life lived with electric color, texture, adventure, and value.

Your rituals sustain you, cherish them.