The New Dawn

 

Each day, we wake up, rubbing our eyes to a new day.

And what greets us as we open those eyes?

Light!

A new dawn greets us each day, but it is easy to overlook. Tempting to treat it as something mundane, something to be expected.

What are the first actions you take to greet the new day?

Hit snooze button? Grab for phone to see what you missed in the last hours? Grumble about having to work?

I hope that we can all create space for meaning around each new day, and I have a few inspirations for us as we work to understand what each new dawn offers us.

First, being a poet and an optimist, I see the new dawn as a new chance to discover ourselves, to receive gifts in life. I see life itself as a beautiful struggle, one that includes pain and hurt and trauma. All of us struggle to overcome our addictions (money, power, work, substances, etc.) and head to bed with hope and faith that we can find a new path. And each morning provides us with a chance to begin paving a new road, creating a new direction for our life.

Second, in many eastern traditions, the night is seen as a “small death”, with each new day giving us life again. 

Blinding brightness that greets us tomorrow and each morning

is new light

        is new life

                is rebirth

                        is renewal 

                                is being born again

When we close our eyes at night we surrender our life into Hands Higher, no longer in control of whether we will see light again. It puts perspective on the act of waking up each morning, huh? It puts perspective on whether checking our phone in those first sacred minutes is really needed.

Third, a reminder of the importance in many traditions to waking up early to greet the morning sun as it rises. In Muslim tradition, the first prayer of the day (Salat al-Fajr) is to be completed before the sun rises. In Navajo tradition, one rises and runs to the east to greet the morning sun and the new day as a spiritual and physical exercise.

What do your traditions teach about the holiness of the morning?

What do you want your tradition to be each time a new dawn greets you?

Brothers and sisters, let us greet the new day with a few minutes that sets the course of that day and of our life in a way that is intentional, reflective of our spiritual values and gratitude for life. 

Embrace those first minutes as sacred, holy, and precious. Treat them with utmost care and love. Doing so might be the best thing you do to love yourself each day!

May each new dawn bring light to each of our worlds.

Allow us to be awake and aware of the gift the new dawn offers us.

 

I offer a video with a poem “The New Dawn” as an extra for this piece. An excuse for a few minutes of self-care and relaxation. Enjoy!

I continue to be inspired by Amanda Gorman and her inauguration poem. The last lines of her piece were part of the inspiration for this piece. 

The new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

-Amanda Gorman