Sep 21, 2023
by Richard Wagamese
What a beautiful gem this was to read. And a spontaneous read, too! I was sorting my friend’s stack of books when I came across it.
I am impatient when it comes to books, so as my friends were getting ready for dinner, I opened the book and started reading. The introduction read,
“Mornings have become my table. At dawn each day, I creep from my bedroom down the hall to the kitchen, where I set my tea to brew and then move to the living room to wait. In the immaculate silence, I watch the world unfurl from shadow.”
Richard Wagamese gets it. There is nothing more peaceful than the silence and stillness of mornings. If you were to take the split second between breaths or the moment before a sneeze, for example, and extend it, that’s what mornings feel like—stretching an imperceptible moment and making it feel endless.
The first meditation started with,
“I am my silence. I am not the busyness of my thoughts or the daily rhythm of my actions. I am not the stuff that constitutes my world. I am not my talk. I am not my actions. I am my silence. I am the consciousness that perceives all these things.”
I wanted to weep when I started to read this. I felt it deep in my soul. The teachings, stories, and spirit of the FNMI (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) communities resonate with me as I spend more and more time in Nature. The way Richard Wagamese speaks about his connection with Nature and with Creator (who I think is similar to God for Christians) is profound and beautiful. It reminded me that we are deeply connected with Self, Spirit and God. We’ve just forgotten about it. Perhaps that’s another reason I love mornings. It’s still enough to feel Spirit in the air and Self in your heart.
I finished this book in two sittings. It was beautiful, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to feel connected to the Earth and Self. I was sad to learn that the author passed on in 2017. I would’ve loved to have told him personally just how much I loved his work. I have dog-eared many pages and would love to include them all in this post, but I will settle for two of my favourites.
