Day 23 - Morning

As we enter the 4th week of practice, the idea is to expand mindfulness from the present moment to all the moments of our day. Personally I’ve discovered when I start the day with the intention to be mindful and make this a regular habit, I’m more centered and grounded the rest of the day. I don’t get rattled quite as easily by the speed bumps that inevitably pop up. I smile more and am more apt to notice the beauty of a bird flying overhead.

The Wonder and Strangeness of a Day

Each new day is a path of wonder, a different invitation. Days are where our lives gradually become visible. Often it seems that we have to undertake the longest journey to arrive at what has been nearest all along. Morning rarely find us so astounded at the new day that we are unable to decide between adventures, We take on days with the same conditioned reflex with which we wash and put on our clothes each morning. If we could be mindful of how short our time is, we might learn how precious each day is. There are people who will never forget today.

We dodder through our days as if they were our surest belongings. No day belongs to us. Each day is a gift. Tragically, it is often when we are about to lose a thing that the scales fall from our eyes, but it is usually too late. On its way toward us, destiny travels silently, until it arrives. Then something we had never expected becomes loud around us. Time is where eternity unfolds. The contemplative tradition has always recognized the morning as the time to recognize the new day with a sense of creative expectation and openheartedness.

From to Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue.

How will you spend this day?

Practice Options

• Clear your mind with the exercise of Morning Pages.

• Awaken your body with sunrise yoga with Adriene.

• Set an intention following the example of the eighteenth-century Hasidic Rabbi Hayim Heikel of Amdur When you awake in the morning immediately remember that the blessed Creator has acted toward you with goodness and kindness, for He has returned the soul to you; the soul that fills your whole body. . . . Before opening your eyes, draw the Creator to you — likewise with your ears, mouth, and mind.   If you follow this practice, all your deeds will be holy that day, as it is written, “I foretell the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10). In my version, before I even open my eyes, my first awareness is to envision the day ahead of me. I sense my breath and recognize the gift of life granted to me this day. I slowly open my eyes, tune into the sounds of the morning, stretch my body and put my feet on the floor. I then set the intention to live the day with a spirit of grace and gratitude.
  

• Reflect on this passage by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be grateful for each new day.

A new day that you have never lived before.

Twenty-four new, fresh, unexplored hours

to use usefully and profitably.

We can squander, neglect or use it.

Life will be richer or poorer by the way we use today.

Finish everyday and be done with it.

You have done what you could;

some blunders and absurdities crept in;

forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day.

You shall begin it well and serenely

and with too high a spirit to be encumbered

with your old nonsense.