Journal Entry – Mornings with Orion

I leave for work between 0550 and 0555 every weekday.  When I first started this job in April I would be pulling my motorcycle out of the garage in the half-light before dawn.  As the solstice approached, the days lengthened and I revelled in the bright sun that greeted me earlier and earlier each day.

The Earth continued on its path, through the solstice and on to aphelion and beyond.  I began to notice a hint of primordial horror aimed at the darkness encroaching again on my morning routine.

I have always been a creature of the light.  The bright energy of the Sun lifts my spirits no matter my mood.  Since I was young the dark has made me feel small, unprotected and vulnerable.  As an adult that has become a sense of loneliness, separation from the glorious daylight that brings beauty and life to the world.

In the last week it has been fully dark when I opened my door to walk out into the last vestiges of night to begin my day.  At first I ignored the blackness and moved quickly to get on the road and feel the agency and distraction of movement.

Yet Monday I stopped and noticed the world around me.  When I opened my door my gaze was pulled to the constellation Orion hanging high in the southern skies.  I stopped for a moment to drink in the beauty of these distant suns glinting against the black canvas of the Universe.

I drank in the mystery of knowing the light from these suns left its origin long before I existed only to end its relativistic journey in the retinas of my eyes.

My awareness moved into the world around me: the brightly crisp morning air, the soft susurrus of air barely moving the leaves on the tree hanging over my driveway, fully drinking in the beauty of the quiet, crepuscular morning.

In the absence of light much of the world rests.  There is a peaceful calm before the hubbub and tumult of the day when the birds and woodland creatures and primates in metal boxes all begin to move across the planet towards their intended purposes.

I felt the slumbering energies around me and took a breath deeply into my lungs, feeling joy and love for the mysterious darkness.  Feeling alive with the knowledge that light can not exist without dark and that to only feel connection with one is to cut one’s self off from something glorious.

Though I was never a friend to the darkness before, I will now choose to move forward by starting my day with wonder instead of resentment or sorrow.

Now I will walk outside in the morning with the porch light off and spend a few moments with Orion, hot coffee steaming invisibly into the ebon expanse.  The upper left star of Orion’s body is a deep orange-red, the supergiant Betelgeuse.  Others are faint or bright with familiar names like Rigel and Bellatrix.  Perhaps they each hold a family of planets in their loving embrace: alien worlds where some creature may look up and see our Sun flashing in the emptiness only to wonder what may be circling that mote of light bedazzling the dark welkin of their night.