"Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund".
German proverb
Apparently, last night I inadvertently changed the setting on my alarm. After it went off this morning, I was up with coffee water heating and bed made before I realized that it was only 4:30. By that time I was too awake to go back to bed, and my French press coffee had steeped the required four minutes and was ready to press and pour. By 4:35 I was out on the front porch in the pre-dawn darkness with my steaming cup of coffee. In the kind of quiet that only comes before the sun makes her appearance, I remembered the treasures of the early morning hours. I'm a morning girl. Always have been. There is, for me, something good that happens as a new day breaks.
In the movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers, as hope fades for those who have been fighting in the Battle of Helm's Deep, Gandalf sets out to find and bring back reinforcements. Reinforcements that will be necessary if the fight for Middle Earth is to be won. As he leaves, Gandalf famously tells Aaragorn, "Look to my coming at first light on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the east."
Lately, I've gotten a little lazy about being up in time to pan for the morning gold. A little later to bed, a little bit more email, a little social media check-in, a little more Netflix, a little more mindless wanderings, all of which makes it a little easier to sleep a little longer. Without time to mine for the gold hidden in the silence, stillness, solitude and spaciousness of the morning, it is a little harder to be the better me that I seek to be.
There are reinforcements that arrive, like clockwork, every morning. But if I miss the hour, I miss what that hour has to offer.
The morning has gold in its mouth.