A light shining on the darkness . . .

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

I woke up early this morning, before the sunrise.  There is much to be done, much that has been pushed back.  It has not been procrastination, but prioritization.  The fire that burned hottest got the immediate attention.  Today the fires are under control, at least.  But it seemed wise to get up early in the dark when  glowing embers can be spotted more easily.

So it was dark when I plopped down on the sofa for this Saturday morning ritual of writing and coffee.  The perspective for dawn is different from here.  Normally I see the sunrise from my bedroom through windows facing a tad south of east.  It is an original  miraculous work every day, as first a tiny ribbon of crimson outlines the horizon, separating it from the sky that is imperceptibly giving up the indigo blue of night. Dawn comes quickly and powerfully as the blazing deep orange ball cautiously peers above the far ridge-line for a moment and then, as if seeing that the coast is clear, explodes boldly, sprinting out of the mountainous starting blocks, each step taking it higher in the heavens, casting its brilliant rays farther and farther west with each passing second.

But I could not see that this morning.  I could not look directly at the rising sun.  I was on the wrong side of the house.

It was different from this perspective.  Looking up the mountain side from the den windows all was dark. It was hard to see the sky at all because of the forest that begins directly behind my house.  But then I thought I saw something.  It was so subtle that I was not sure.  Probably nothing. But I could not stop looking.  Far up, at the very top of the tallest trees, there seemed to be a faint glow.  Not much.  Just a touch of pink against the grey bark of the highest tips of the forest spires. There was no explosion of light, no dramatic display of separating and changing colors and shafts of light.  Just the faint reddening glow. The glow of the tree tops intensified slowly, and crept lower until it reached the ground. And reached everything.

And I realized it was morning.  It was light.

I didn't see the sun when it appeared this morning.  I was on the dark side of the house.

But I saw the world reflecting it's light.

And I knew that the light had come.

.