In winter before the sun truly rises, when sunlight strikes the slopes to the west but the sky is still pale, when the cold is so deep that snow squeaks underfoot, I walk to the ridge top.

Mercifully, there is little wind. I reach the grandmother pine tree, wisened and gnarled by her rugged life on top of a rocky ridge. Six hundred years she has stood here. She… yes, that’s my human thinking and yet that’s the feeling I get from this venerable being. The things she must have seen!

Pumpkin ridge and mount emily - image by arie farnam

I am thankful for the winter, for the cold. In these days of worsening fires and droughts, any cold or snow is to be valued. But this winter is mild. The cold has come only in a few intense blasts, like this one. The snow is scant and stale.

Each morning I still meditate, despite my daily life descending into a blur of chaos, conflict, grief and struggle with various bureaucracies. I still cling to that one bit of routine and stability. And the heart of that is gratitude.

I speak my thanks for my health, my body, my mind, my heart, my soul—even on days when I don’t feel so sure of any of that. I still give thanks.

I give thanks for my family, even when the grief and strain of their struggles has pushed me far beyond my breaking point. It’s a principle, but that thanks is sometimes hollow.

I give thanks for the abundance of my life, even though my existence which once spanned continents has contracted to the cramped confines of intractable restrictions and endless daily tasks. Still, my special chai tea, a piece of salmon and tomatoes from my garden still ripening on the windowsill halfway through winter make me conscious of blessings.

But that is nothing beside the thanks I give for this valley, the mountain, the ridge, the trees, the land and the open sky. Even on the worst days, when I can’t stop the tears falling all through my meditation, my heart sings in gratitude for the land and the sky. So many years I spent far away from this place, and I did value and care for the land there, but always this place was in my heart, even when I didn’t know it. And now, when times are hard beyond hard, my gratitude for the land and sky surpasses words.

I touch the prickly spines of pine needles. She gives me three small cones, hard and spiky, sharp in the cold. I pour out a stream of green gold tea, lit with the dawn, steam billowing from it. Drink and know you are honored, grandmother.

It is Imbolc time, the holiest part of the year for me because of my lady, Brigid. It is a quiet time without great community festivities but dear to my heart. Cold still binds the land like stone, but light is returning. The dawn rays are pale wheat, a promise of abundance and spring coming.

Maybe someday there will be space to write again. Maybe spring will come to my life. I still live in the depths of a barren and desolate time. Most days, I don’t think I will have health or years enough to start over when I’m finally free of this toil and sorrow.

But in rare moments, when I see a sunrise or a moon nearly full or the sky free and unbound, I say to myself that this winter must pass someday. Spring may not be the same as it was. Rains are scarce. The heat may come too early. But each season passes.

That is what the scripture of this mountain tells me.

Gray light seeps into the darkness. Ice glistens at the coldest hour of the day.

A breath--too cold but bringing a whisper of freedom.

Then a ribbon of brilliance along the horizon.

A quickened heartbeat.

Finally color--first pink, then peach and gold, spilling ever more rapidly, like cascading joyful music, like the chatter of children and birds, like waterfalls. The sky lights up.

Ice crystals glitter and sparkle. Every branch is outlined in light, the earth bright and crackling. Frozen mist curls in the low places, painting pictures of another world. The first footprints are precious but also a desecration. There's an urge to dance but cold muscles refuse.

This is sunrise in winter. The night is long and the sun is unnaturally, painfully bright. The nature of sunrise is to be too bright.

It is also its nature to be full of promise. There is a sense at the hour of daybreak that all things are possible. Goodwill and hope come swiftly, especially if there's coffee.

We promise ourselves that things will go well today. We plan work and play, eager to cram in more than can possibly be accomplished in the hours ahead. Like New Year's resolutions, the plans of dawn are full of conviction and vigor before the lazy slug-a-beds of duties and troubles reawaken a little later.

This moment of fresh enthusiasm is necessary to the day, just as it is necessary to the year.

In some circles, it has become fashionable to ridicule New Year's resolutions. "We're all adults here after all. We know that people don't really improve their habits. They start but they don't last."

It's the nature of sunrise to be too bright, too enthusiastic and ultimately illusive.

And yet, there is one thing that "us grown-ups" tend to forget. It is also the nature of sunrise to be endlessly recurring. Sunrise may be just one moment and it's hope may be fleeting.

But it always comes back. And that is not fleeting.

That endures.

People don't improve their habits in one sunrise or one New Year's resolution. But they do in a hundred sunrises or a thousand.

Five years ago, I started to change my habits. I got up early to do spiritual practice and meditation. At first it only happened sometimes. I tried to get up too early and greedily get many other things done before the children woke up and the lack of sleep brought me to my knees.

I sprinted and faltered--for months at a time. I started again and again.

Now I have been getting up just a half hour early for three years. I've missed a few days due to acute illnesses but I can count those on my fingers.

These past three years have been among the hardest I've lived through, due to circumstances beyond my control. I don't know how I would have made it this far without those early morning moments of peace.

I am deeply thankful for sunrises, particularly that they reliably return and never abandon me.