Sunrise and beginnings

Early this morning for the first time in a while, the sunrise was glorious, pink, purple and orange. Jet trails patterned the sky with flaming strips. Birch branches, traceries of black lace, began to fill with birds.

Today the kids go back to school, a bright yellow bus drives carefully by. It's bitter cold and icy on the roads. My boots crunch in the snow and I can feel my fingertips start to burn as I turn around and just look.

Another day I think. Maybe it will be beautiful... maybe not, but each day is a new beginning - everything is new. And everything is also the same. Little birds gather early in the gloom. Breakfast is important for these little creatures.

Goldfinches like to eat at this particular feeder, sparrows are pretty much ubiquitous and show little discrimination - just wherever there is food - you'll find them there. That's it's a new day isn't important to them.

For them this morning isn't a new beginning like the youngsters returning to school today. Their lives are the same every day - eat, sleep, fly to safe place when danger threatens like hawks overhead. And for hawks, its endlessly combing the ground with their sharp eyes.

Thinking of hawks I look skyward as it is striped with dark red, bright orange, soft pinks and purples. It's so beautiful. I feel blessed to be able to watch it, to photograph it, to experience a new day with all the splendour and all the mundane routine that it will entail. And I determine once again to remember that I'm given this opportunity every twenty-four hours... to experience something new, something wonderful or routine, it doesn't matter which because essentially it's all pretty amazing. So many can't and don't.

Today I'm present. Today I'm grateful. Today I will accomplish some new thing and also "pay it forward" - this wonder and joy I've experienced. May you receive joy and beauty in your life this and every day.