Darkness Before Dawn

Do you ever wake in the darkness before dawn and lie in bed, just thinking? Those hours waiting for sunrise have been written about by many people. It’s in those moments that thoughts, both good and bad, come creeping. Things that we suppress during the day find this is a good time to keep us awake, and thinking. And, thinking.

Maybe it’s then that we are at our creative best. Francis Scott Key, a young lawyer who was held a prisoner on a British ship more than 200 years ago, anxiously scanned the horizon in those hours and penned the opening line of our National Anthem. “O, say, can you see by the dawn’s early light…” 

A few years back, his inspiration was my inspiration as I wrote a tongue-in-cheek children’s story, Star Spangled Cat.

I wonder how many decisions have been made in those wakeful, early morning hours? How many stories and songs have been written or conclusions reached? The challenge is to sift out the bad thoughts and keep the good, because fears and worries like those hours of darkness too.

 With daylight, solitary thoughts vanish like dew under sunlight. Sometimes, this is a relief, to be free from the negative; at other times, we can hardly wait to act upon a conclusion or a bright idea. The challenge is to bar the negative and embrace the positive, to be the master of our thinking, even in those early hours, just before sunrise.

Manos Mysteries