Morning doesn’t always bring peace. Sorrow may linger, grief that is not wiped away by night or sleep or even tears.
Beauty, though, can help approximate the sense of peace, help me to recollect a meditative, even if it’s melancholy, calm. This, too, brings some small measure of what I remember as true peace, and lets me know that the capacity remains. In possibility is hope. In hope is rest. In rest, I can let go, if just for now, the troubles of the hour.
A cloudless dawn has its own quiet way of pouring out benevolence that, if not cure, brings respite of a kind and momentarily distracts the heart from its dull void. At the morning’s break, low-lying mist pools, thick and velvety, swirling so slowly in its densely silver gleam, it seems to be a lake–indeed, a mystic lake where it would be no great surprise to see that shimmering arm emerge that bears Excalibur.
Along the horizon creeps that cottony blue, transforming first to palest violet, then rose, then saturated orange, and finally, shooting sun-flares so bright and dazzling they blind when they reflect from glass sky scraper walls, pillars of wholly molten gold blazing beacon-sharp against the now bright-cobalt sky. Silhouetted there, a hawk perches on its lamppost throne, surveying all as if to say, I’m looking out for you. Let go of worry; I will see that all’s as it should be. And with a sweep of his unfolded wings, plunges off the lamp into the broader light of day.
Art-Colored Glasses 
What a gorgeous photo, and the words that accompany it are a perfect fit. How can something with so many hard lines be soft, and a reflection of such beauty? Nicely done!
I always find the reflections on ‘glass-box’ buildings fascinating, in part because despite all of the hard edges and straight lines the supercooled-liquid of glass always adds its own ripple and distortion . . . somehow I think it makes an interesting analogy for other parts of life, though I’m not sure how to articulate that. Meanwhile, it’s just a cool thing to look at (at least once I’m over being poked in the eye by the intensity of the light enough to actually *see* anything)!
I loved your writing today.. the velvety swirling lake there.. we had snowy white swirling fog in our city this morning. Your words bring such peacefulness when I read them:) xo Smidge
That’s certainly an affinity of ours: my visits to your blog always leave me feeling I’m wrapped up in the billowiest of down comforters, piled onto a massive feather-bed. 🙂 K
Beautiful morning! beautiful morning words.. lovely honey.. I hope you are not sad tho.. c
I was sad when I wrote it–I just started thinking too seriously about the approaching end of the interim gig at the church and how much I’ll miss the people and the music there, and got overwhelmed by it. But all things are ephemeral and passing through our lives, including my melancholy . . . I know that you understand such things very well indeed. Thanks for the sweet words, dearest.
K
The hawk lives everyday as if it is its last – or its first. We are the only ones who count the days. I wonder though does the hawk see the beauty that you see.
I so often wonder what animals *really* have going on in their minds, because as much as they think *differently* from humans, the clearly do *think* . . .
I’m especially fond of hawks, perhaps partly because of the true inscrutability of a wild, independent creature of the sky but certainly too because they are both inherently beautiful and traditionally totemic (I even like to imagine when they perch along my travel route that they are there to reassure and guide me).
I heard the Yellow Billed Kites and the Black Eagles call this morning… it will be the last for awhile, as the Kites migrate north for the winter… and even though the Black Eagles won’t migrate we seldom see them in winter. Your words were so lyrical in their splendour… I hope you find true peace in the light of day, and joy in the coming spring. We are loving the warm autumn days with a late display of vibrant colour in the garden due to all the recent rain… it is magical. Thank-you Kathryn, your words were a special treat this quiet Monday morning. Have an awesome week, Mands
This note gives me the perfect awesome start to the week, Mands! Thank you. Yes, I got through my morning melancholy, thanks in part to those reassuring views. Spring is incredibly fast in coming here; we may well be approaching your autumn temperatures (around 28C for several days lately), so since we got a good dash of much-appreciated rain, the speed of the plant growth is absolutely astounding. I do love autumn’s changes, too, and imagine the migratory birds must be a wonderful display there as here, but with quite different characters in the mix!
I hope your week has also had a beautiful beginning!
xo
Kathryn
As always, lovely words and imagery.
Thanks–this time it was a bit therapeutic to write and choose them.
Beautifully written, and amazingly detailed, I felt tears as I explored your wonderfully painted world, a bit astonished that somewhere like that exists………. I’d very much like to see it with my own eyes, but if only through yours shall I venture to that land, then content I am to have peeked at greatness. 🙂
Thank you, my friend! I suppose it’s a bit of a twist that both of the images–which do represent pretty well what I was seeing here in north Texas when I wrote about the sights–were originally photographed about 2500 miles away in Canada (Lake Louise and Edmonton, respectively), and then I digitally painted and tweaked them extensively in Photoshop to make them into something closer yet to what I saw and described here (not so easily photographed from a moving car on the freeway). 🙂
lol, you did perfectly nevertheless, 🙂
So beautifully written that I had to read it twice!
Have a happy day dear Kathryn.
🙂 Mandy xo
Thanks to my kind blogging friends I am having a very happy day, my dearest! I am so honored that you liked this piece. It cheered me up a bit to write it, too.
❤
Kathryn
can’t take my eyes away of the first image…
Ah, my sister-fantasist, of course you would like a misty fen . . . 🙂
Lovely words, and that picture sent goosebumps up my spine.
I’m hoping and assuming that you mean *good* goosebumps rather than the kind that come from watching a horror movie! 😉
xo
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Your post took my breath away and filled me with joy. I am giving you the Sunshine Award today. http://believeanyway.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/well-sing-in-the-sunshine-well-laugh-every-day/
Thank you, dear Kate, I am working toward an appropriate response. It’s overcast here today, so I might as well be working on some manufactured sunshine, no? 🙂 I’m glad you enjoyed this one.
xoxo
Such a lovely post, Kathryn, the words, the imagery, the sentiment, everything. Good-byes are rarely easy but, sometimes, they’re needed before the next round of hellos can begin. It’s about change but can be about growth.
Absolutely love that pic of the buildings. During my very first trip to Chicago, over 30 years ago, I was driving down Lake Shore Drive as the sun rose. I fell in love with this City right then and there. I’ve never forgotten the sight of the skyline reflecting the sun’s rays. To this day, whenever I approach the City, I see the skyscrapers and can’t help but think of that morning.
Thank heaven it wasn’t cloudy that morning!
Chicago is such a beautiful city, and so full of life, but I can imagine that it was only enhanced by that morning’s view! 😀
I love both of the photos and the contrast between them.
I’m glad you like that effect–I was a little hesitant that the contrast might be *too* much and detract from the overall idea, but decided to just go with it, since that’s kind of what struck me about the morning.
Not always commenting but definitely reading & liking. Email backlog is at an all-time high, the height of a glass box building…
How very well I know this feeling! I am so grateful just to know that dear friends are ‘out there’ on the periphery: it lifts my spirits so to sense that unspoken support and kindness surround me even when those present aren’t able to ‘sit down for a cuppa’. One of my long-time sister-friends came here spontaneously for a visit yesterday and though both of us are too busy to even call or write more than a couple of times a year if we’re lucky, the minute we saw each other all of that just disappeared, because we know we keep each other constantly in our hearts. I hope you know that I delight in the same sort of quick-visit looks at your blog, though I rarely have time to comment there either!
Stunning beautiful and relieving in words and pictures! Thanks for sharing all your thoughts and talents, Kathryn!
Isn’t it interesting how often when we are musing on or unburdening ourselves of things that are lying, perhaps heavily, on our own hearts, the words can not only soften our own feelings but sometimes touch a chord in others’ . . . 🙂