early morning blessing

It is early morning, still dark and strangely quiet in these suburban streets. The rain falls softly, slowly, steadily, a blessing for the worried and weary. The ground laps at each drop, begging for more. The corner streetlamp casts a yellow light, reflected in the shiny black pavement, a miniature pool proudly forming, its abstract, fluid form appearing as waves in the slight breeze. For one moment, standing in the rain, my mind was empty. As the rain to the earth, that emptiness was my blessing today.

Life has begun to move too fast, a race against time and growth, a marathon of responsibility. With each step, I fight for freedom and creativity, wisdom and self-nurturance. My body aches for sleep, my soul for soothing. My spirit roars in a protest of feminine wildness, but the sound is muted. I can barely hear myself anymore and it is a sound I long to hear.

I love my drive to the mountains. Once or twice each week, I awaken in the darkness and begin the journey northbound to a place where silence is broken only by Nature’s whispering. Life slows down and I am blessed by each turning shade of the leaves. The turning is slow this year, announcing its own protest against the unseasonable heat and insatiable thirst. Through amber-tinted glasses, Autumn feels closer than the naked eye allows. Through these lens, I am able to see the threads of gold woven ever so slightly, the splashes of red haphazardly painted on the canvas of the horizon. Through these lens, I am granted another moment of blessing.

I would love to say that I am reveling in many moments of such blessing, that the journey I am now walking is one in peace and balance. I would love to write those words because that is the experience I ache for in the deepest parts of my soul. But I remove the lenses, and I am faced with the suffocating pain of the world. When I reach my destination in the mountains, I spend my hours holding the pain of innocent children. Stories of violation, brutality, and the most basic forms of human betrayal hit me in tumultuous waves. I feel incompetent, helpless, lost in a maze that contains a hidden door to which no one has the key. On Thursday mornings, I am faced with more stories of pain, teachings on grief and trauma that brush too closely against the fragile fabric of my own memories. The afternoon discussions of oppression leave me in a state of defiance followed by exhaustion. I am learning more than I could have ever imagined and yet that learning requires tremendous self-sacrifice.

It is time to venture northbound again. Daylight is slowly creeping into the corners of another long day. The pain of the world awaits, as does the persistence to battle the feelings of anger and hopelessness lingering beneath the surface. Another day, another opportunity. I am thankful for Nature’s reprieve and my own moments of blessing.