Yearning for Dawn

Against all odds, it can happen quickly

At dawn, the world transforms at a breakneck pace. If you can get in place in time to see it all occur, it feels as though you’re watching a movie that’s been flipped to fast-forward. After hour upon hour of slow, creeping darkness, suddenly the scenery is rapidly evolving into something that would’ve seemed impossible only 10 minutes ago. Each second that passes shows everything bathed in a brand new light, the sky itself lifting from grey to lavender to peach, moment by moment.

There a mockingbird lands on the power line, and immediately the static peace of the cricket chorus is drowned out with tumbling bird song. “Quiet hours are over” he shouts, “why aren’t you singing, too?”  

There a flock of ibis glide in from whatever tree they found to roost in last night, and the placid expanse of water is now a bustling diner during the breakfast rush. 

If you have the good sense to remember that you are actually not a spectator of this world but an inhabitant of - a participant in - it, you can take a single step forward and find yourself swept up in this transformation too. New shades washing over your heart, new movement awakening, new growth bursting forward. The things that have lain dormant and dark and inside of you are also thawing, stirring, singing.

This weekend I walked down the main road of Galveston Island State Park as the sun rose and watched everything explode in my favorite and most familiar miracle. I can never do justice to the energy the world holds in its first light. The way everything radiates gratitude for having arrived at this morning (which had felt all night like it would never exist), the relief, the earth stretching and yawning and smiling all around me. A yellow-crowned night heron and I locked eyes across the marsh and stood still in that gaze for a lingering minute. For me this was spurred by affection, for him it was surely skepticism. Which won’t stop me from infusing the memory with intimacy and kinship, even when I know it’s a benevolence I don’t deserve. The bird on his rare remaining slice of preserved land, nestled between the oil refinery and the tourist beach homes. And the girl who came out to see him. Watching each other come back to light, silently reveling together in the golden glow.

Lately I’m always feeling like there’s not enough time for everything I want to do, everything I feel called to learn, everything we need to change. We’re racing the clock. We’re losing that race. How can we ever get to where we need to be in time for it to matter? This rushed desperation finds so much comfort in going out to see and be seen by the dawn. Experiencing the stillness. Watching it create the newness. Seeing how quickly it can all occur and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming that this could be possible for me and for us. That no matter how deep and eternal the darkness feels right now, we could soon wake up and find the world all rife with dawn.

On Sundays I host a live at 8pm central for paid Substack subscribers where we pause for a moment, notice ourselves, and set intentions for the week ahead (replays always available). It is a space of fierce acceptance and open curiosity, which is an energy I and everyone who joins has learned is THE antidote to Sunday Scaries. I would love to have you join! Signing up for a paid membership here on Substack is your ticket in.

• This newsletter only exists because I read Enlightenment by Sarah Perry, in which the main character writes a column for a local newspaper and his boss is always telling him to go attend an event or look at the stars and write “500 words, 6 if the sky is clear” and it inspired me to start giving myself similar assignments. Also it’s about growing up Calvinist and being gay and obsessed with nature so I feel very personally attached to it.

• This week was Reptiles and Amphibians week at Texas Master Naturalist training and the moment this slide appeared on screen I became irrevocably obsessed with Narrow Mouthed Toads. Look at those proportions. Terrible. Adorable. Please watch this video of their call I promise you are not prepared for it.