Sun-Rising

Turning Toward the Sun

“But when that proverbial ribbon of color blurs into focus on the horizon, pushes up the night, and makes the stars go out, it is not from the sun’s rising…It is from Earth turning slowly toward the sun.”
Jill Sisson Quinn (Onearth, Winter 2011-12)

Every morning, I rise just about the time our piece of the northern hemisphere turns its face toward the sun. The sky is just beginning to lighten. There are some advantages to rising so early—besides seeing the ‘sunrise’. Another is hearing the birds at this hour, even in winter, but especially right now, in spring. A veritable symphony is conducted outside my window-everything from the raucous cawing of crows, to the trilling of the thrushes to, to the arias of the mockingbirds. Soon the woodpeckers will begin their summer drumming on the rain gutters that sounds like automatic weapons firing at close range. I also like the relative cool of early morning for getting my little garden weeded and watered before the sun sinks it teeth into all of us. I like reviewing my dreams, too. Usually if I replay them in my minds eye as soon as I wake, I will remember them all day.

My friends accuse me of being an old-gomer for going to bed early and getting up before God, but I was this way before I was old. Even in high school, when everyone else clung to their pillows until the last possible moment, I was awake at daylight. My circadian rhythms are set to sun-time. I was not allowed to speak to my sister, Jerrie, until after school. Not if I valued my head. She was definitely not a morning person.

I wonder how many of you are sun-risers? Or, are you most in tune with the moon and stars? Do you prefer to stay up until the wee hours and sleep well into the day? Are you able to live in rhythm with yourself? I’m a great believer in respecting one’s natural rhythm. I feel for the night-owls who have to be at their jobs by eight a.m. I can imagine how cranky and mal-adjusted they feel until their normal time of rising. Our notions of appropriate work-time for were set in the days when we made our livings in the fields and farms, and not for the post-industrial age. Maybe one day our timing will catch up with our technology and people will be able to work their own hours. Yesterday, I heard about a company in California that is creating the Jetsons’ flying car. They plan to market it soon. I hope they put some powerful headlights on that thing so all the night owls can see to fly home. Hope they’re quiet, too.

Up with the sun,
Jane