A rare experience of a moment at daybreak,
when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness,
cannot be explained at noon.
Yet it is part of the day’s unity.
Charles Ives
(starlings make their first flight of the day / Julie Cook / 2017)
‘Awake, my soul, awake! show thy spirit, arouse thy senses,
shake off the sluggishness of that deadly heaviness that is upon thee,
begin to take care for thy salvation.
Let the idleness of vain imaginations be put to flight, let go of sloth,
hold fast to diligence.
Be instant in holy meditations, cleave to the good things which are of God:
leaving that which is temporal, give heed to that which is eternal.
Now in this godly employment of thy mind,
to what canst thou turn thy thoughts more wholesomely and profitably than to
the sweet contemplations of thy Creator’s immeasurable benefits toward thee.’
St. Anselm of Canterbury