What Matters Most………Commentary by Jim High  

Dawn 

Dawn is the most important time of each day and most people rarely see it.  If you don’t see it, you will never understand its power.  And you will have no chance for that power to change your life. 

I’ll admit there was a time in my life when seeing daybreak in the mornings was not a high priority for me, and then I visited Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, one of my all time heroes.  During the tour we were told that Jefferson would get up before dawn and walk the lawn in front of his home waiting for the sun to bring dawn and light to the land again, and thinking about his approaching new day.

It was a powerful and moving story.  So much so, I started to get up to see what the dawn might do for me.  As a practical matter, I realized that being up early would give me extra time for taking care of the many details of my daily life, maybe even time to read, learn, and understand some new things.

I had the perfect place to try out this new practice, my cabin on Pickwick Lake.  Early in the morning before the sun begins to appear over the hills on the opposite side of the lake there is no light anywhere, no noise to be heard, nothing but quiet and solitude.  I thought of it as “My Monticello”.  I would set the alarm, get up, fix coffee, take my cup out to the deck overlooking the lake and sit quietly waiting for the first rays of dawn to appear.

When you can get yourself to a place like this your mind actually slows down and your thoughts become more organized and clear.  After only a few days of doing this I came to understand I was witnessing the beginning of a day that had never before appeared on this earth.  Yesterday is gone and can never be changed, and whatever yesterday contained does not have to be repeated, unless of course, it was wonderful. 

You don’t have to go anywhere special to experience the dawn of a new day.  Dawn happens wherever you are.  But since the exact time of dawn changes from day to day, I picked a time early enough to be ahead of it year round.  That time has now become 4:50 a.m. every morning; not just at Pickwick Lake, but at home and even while on vacation.  Dawn over the ocean or in the mountains brings its own special benefits.  The two extra hours in my day has allowed me to read and learn from nearly a hundred books a year since I began my practice of greeting the dawn everyday like my hero Thomas Jefferson.

There are all kinds of dawns -- clear, stormy, foggy, hot and muggy, cold and crisp, and every dawn is a promise of a new day.  Dawn is when the Universe speaks to you if you are listening.

What matters most can best be said by the words of this poem by Kalidasa, the renowned Classical Sanskrit poet who lived in the period 370-450AD.

Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!

Look to this Day!

For it is Life, the very Life of Life.

In its brief course lie all the

Verities and Realities of your Existence.

The Bliss of Growth,

The Glory of Action,

The Splendor of Beauty;

For Yesterday is but a Dream,

And Tomorrow is only a Vision;

But Today well lived makes

Every yesterday a Dream of Happiness,

And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.

Look well therefore to this Day!

Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!

                                                © 2008 #18  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467