Working, we miss the rhythms of life

Confined every day in an office, sitting at a desk, you miss the rhythms of the day. For the past week and a half, I've been out of the office, watching the day cycle through its phases. I've watched the sunbeams filter through the windows and cast each room in an ever-changing light like a prism or theatrical lighting. The solar spotlight highlights first one wall, then another, one piece of furniture, one rectangle of the floor, one picture on the wall or one book on the shelf. The light makes each room an ever-changing place as the sun rises higher and arcs toward the west.

Outside, the shadows cast by trees and buildings lengthen and shorten, the respiration of the day. The yard takes on new shapes as the shadows create a camouflage, ever changing as the day progresses.

These subtle transformations are what we miss in our workaday world, where we seldom get the opportunity to "stop and smell the roses." There are more than roses out there. The gardenias and mums and hydrangea and hibiscus put on a show that one must pause to appreciate, and the changing light makes each hour new and different. These sensual experiences are what always appealed to me about a day off from work or a "staycation" at home. It was not the opportunity to do chores or to relax that made those days off so pleasurable. It was the chance to see the small piece of the world we occupied but never fully appreciated — the way the setting sun cast a pattern on the eastern wall, the way the dew sparkled in the morning light, the aroma of a dew-sprinkled fresh new day.

At six this morning, I looked up and saw Orion high in the clear black sky, no hint yet of dawn in the east, the Pleiades leading him westward as his hunting dogs with brilliant Sirius followed. Orion's appearance in the early morning announces the approach of winter and the continuation of the rhythm of the day, the month, the year.