Morning magic

I have a new habit. It involves a dog, a cottonwood grove, timing and the morning sky. It starts around 6:30. I don my favorite ear-flap wool hat, gloves or heavy mitts, down jacket and black winter boots. I reach for Rizzo’s leash and negotiate commands to come, sit and stay. She loves to walk, but is indifferent about leaving. Once her will is aligned with my heart, we walk out the door, down the driveway and turn north.

It goes like this: Rizzo tugs at the lime green leash for 30 yards before giving into the rhythm of our quick clip. At the end of our block we slip between wooden post and metal gate to cross a city-owned field. I navigate grass hummocks that conceal mounds of frozen dog poo. Rizzo prances, her head turning up to meet my gaze now and then. On the far side we hurdle a low fence – me over the top rung, Rizzo over the bottom – and stop at the edge of Vine Street. Rizzo sits sideways to the street, waiting for “release.” We watch cars pass then trot across the street.

It’s December and the air is cold, but not yet sharp enough to freeze my nostrils. I stay warm because I walk fast. Rizzo doesn’t care about my pace or the cold. Once I remove her leash at the edge of the dirt lane, she will come and sit, whether her puppy nose has held her back, or the chase of a flitting chickadee has carried her ahead.

By 6:45 the sun starts to creep above the silhouette of the plains. We are approaching a wide open field edged by horse and cow pasture, a junior high school, and a chain of ponds made from abandoned gravel pits carved out of the river bottom. The trail splits in two at the end of the cottonwood grove. I take the left fork, sticking to the well-traveled track that heads west, toward the foothills. The triangular face of Grey Rock embraces its namesake in the dim morning. High in the hills, among ponderosa and Douglas fir, amber house lights flicker as bright as a motorcycle head lamp. Rizzo dodges among sage and snow, looking for something that might be good to eat.

The trail turns north, dips and crosses a ditch. Just before the dip, a secondary trail loops back east through the cottonwood grove. I follow it and call Rizzo. She has already crossed the ditch and is eager to visit the pond, but she comes back to me at full tilt. I have treats.

This is our point of return, the second half of our walk. Heading east we are rewarded with a show of light that prefigures sunrise. Some mornings, the shy, creeping sun flirts with dust, haze and other sky junk. The underbelly of feather-stroked clouds and the spaces between begin to glow. I watch soft pastels pour through the silhouette of bare cottonwood branches. Looking east I am reminded of friends who already stand in full sunlight, ahead of my time.

Rizzo startles a mallard that rises from the ditch, her sharp wing beats carry her upward, almost frantic. The rippled water of the ditch reflects the sky, now a fiery primrose canvas that is touched by succulent peach. I marvel at the sudden wonder of the Eastern sky enraged by sun and then dimmed to a pale meadowlark breast that will ache for blue. The parade lasts five minutes and is gone. As it should.

Not every morning is so brilliant. But the sun, she rises later and later each morning - for six continuous months - until the winter Solstice when the celestial current turns the tide and our days grow long again, like hair. Slow. Certain. Without effort.

I take this season into my heart with a grace that is new to me. Perhaps now that I have Rizzo to share my walks, nay – to be the sole purpose behind why I walk each morning, perhaps I am finding renewed connection to the subtle yet powerful energy that is behind each moment. Whether I stand in the dark, or the light, I stand for now, gaining strength through the cold of winter while reveling in sky magic. The morning reveals many things, but my heart, touched by the solstice, honors the contrast, impermanence, meaning and light that is becoming my life, one breath at a time.