I took this photo at dawn on December 31st, the last day of the last year.
I have always been drawn to the dawn. It contains an auspicious hopefulness about it.
A favorite of mine, who I am forever quoting in this blog, 19th Century author, transcendentalist and fellow New Englander Henry David Thoreau often wrote about dawn as a metaphor for spiritual awakening.
He said:
“It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. . . . . We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.”
That makes sense to me. Because I see spiritual awakening as an unfolding, and anyone who has risen early to welcome the dawn has certainly witnessed the same unfolding process right before their eyes, yet unable to quite pinpoint where it begins and ends.
A popular quote by German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, “And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been,” has that same sense of hopefulness and dawn for a fresh start.
I’d like to send all of you a belated hopeful wish for the dawn of your new year and your own spiritual awakening.
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