Breakfast Stirrings

February 17th, 2011 | 4 Comments

Most mornings this winter I’ve enjoyed oatmeal for breakfast. The kind that cooks on the stove is worth the effort for me, even though it means an extra pot to wash. Served warm with dried cranberries and a little brown sugar, a few chopped walnuts stirred in, it’s a healthy and comforting brace against a cold morning.

But with the welcome respite we’re having from winter in Central Kentucky right now, I can hardly bear the thought of another bowl of oatmeal. All winter I’ve loved it; now I’m sick of it. Maybe it’s really cold weather I’m weary of, but the guilt by association persists.

Poor oatmeal. A steady companion all these bleak months and now I don’t want it in my sight. Don’t need that remnant of the winter doldrums. It’s hardly fair. I just opened a tall new cylindrical box and it may be next winter before I finish it.

Fresh fruit! Whole wheat toast! Even cold cereal sounds better. Yogurt! Or smoothies! So many possibilities on a sunny spring-like morning. It’s spring fever at the breakfast table.

If the pangs over ignoring my faithful oats grow unbearable, I’ll make them into cookies.

What kind of change are you looking for?

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Opening and Closing Rituals

March 1st, 2010 | 6 Comments

With the closing ceremony of the Olympics complete, we’re now released from the 2010 games. We take the stories with us, but it’s time to move on.  A closing ritual helps us go forward when something good is over. The games are declared closed, but the ceremony also points toward the next host city, and the gathering four years distant.

The pair of opening and closing ceremonies marks a container for the experience, elevating the events they frame. We need a moment at the beginning to say, “Let the games begin.” It helps us see the undertaking as part of something larger. We need closure at the end, a way to hold together the diverse events in a unified experience, making them part of us before we let them go.

Our lives hold many small rituals for beginnings and endings: lighting the Christmas tree, the last night of vacation, baseball’s opening pitch, a minister’s benediction, housewarmings, graduations, groundbreakings, memorials. We set those times apart because we know they’re important. At the same time, we are reminded they’re important because we set them apart.

Even our simple routines at the day’s opening and closing matter. These rituals reassure us as we gather strength in the morning. In the evening, looking back on our efforts for better or worse, they help us put the day to rest. Sunrise and sunset, though they rarely delineate our waking and sleeping, nonetheless offer a relevant ceremony. They form a vessel that contains our lives—a day—to lift up for a blessing, or healing, in grief or gratitude.

A day has meaning. It’s what a life is made of. So I’m considering ways to mark the day’s opening and closing with a small, sustainable, and meaningful ritual.

Does it work to make one up or does it need to evolve naturally? How does a ritual become meaningful?

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Honoring the Sacredness of Early Morning

February 9th, 2010 | 2 Comments

Early morning is sacred time for me, when the day is still pregnant with possibility. Creatively speaking, during the minutes or hours before inevitable demands intrude, anything can happen. The veil of the dream world not yet grown opaque, sometimes I can see through the mist to a consciousness beneath the ordinary.

This receptive frame of mind that fosters a creative life nourishes the spiritual life as well. A day grown from the fertile soil of a quiet morning yields better fruit. For night owls, those rich hours may descend after everyone else is in bed, but I only hear distant hoots from that world.

Years ago a friend encouraged me to rise earlier as a way of cultivating a richer spiritual life. “The world belongs to those who wake early,” she told me. It sounded good, but having my daughter ready to catch the bus at 6:50 a.m. took all the early-morning stamina I had. Dealing calmly with the start of the day was all the practice I could muster, and it was enough.

As children grew more independent and our morning schedule changed, I had more options. But there is a lot of competition for that early morning time!

  • Advice on getting fit says to make exercise part of my routine, ideally first thing in the morning. It energizes the day, and no matter what comes up, exercise is crossed off the list.
  • Many spiritual teachers advocate using the first part of the day to pray. It may be our only uninterrupted time, and the practice helps the day go better.
  • Writers often stress using early morning hours to work. The day will be less angst-ridden if we know our writing is done.
  • And the cat is emphatic that the first task of the morning is filling her food dish. She is charming but increasingly insistent, and her agenda always comes first.

So what is the one thing, the main thing, the most important thing to do? Especially when everything is connected. The strength and health of my body supports everything I do. Writing flows into my spiritual life, and prayer helps me have something positive to offer in all my efforts.

I wish I had many “first hours” of the day. I don’t want to choose. But like it or not, this life requires making choices and setting priorities.

After trying different things, I have settled on a practice that involves pen and paper. It might be writing out a dream from the night before. It might be a journal entry, morning pages, a blog post, or a prayer. I think of my morning writing as a vessel that can contain whatever is needed. Regardless of how it is filled, it helps me listen and respond to the still, small voice heard only in the quiet.

How do you begin your day?

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