Very early, while still dark, he arose and went off to the wilds to pray.

Mark 1:35

Seeker,
When have you been awakened to the magnificence of morning?

Despite a limited apprehension
of the native tongue and tribal ways
of Amazonian villagers

who had home-schooled
me with stories
of the forest,

one astounding awakening
they introduced
was the soaking swirl of misty dawning.

Across decades of foggy memory
I can yet recall cool condensation
and shivering wakefulness

as I waded, chest-deep,
through a density of drawn down cloud,
leaving empty eddies in my wake.

It came as no surprise
to learn
that one of their prevalent images

for Inapprehensible Pervasive Presence,
is the sodden saturation
of heavy morning dew.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?

David Whyte, What to Remember When Waking

For sure there are diaphanous moments,
trying or translucent times
and special secret places,

where dimensions worn bare
and drowsy vulnerability
let imagination loose

to ruffle perception,
and unmask illusions
of what we believe we already understand.

Cold and shaking
through pain and passion
or tingling with exhilaration,

every shrouded form,
bathed in diffused light,
appears unmoored, shifting and drifting.

Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.

Mary Oliver

Now have we entered
wonderland,
where insight overrides oversight

and a diminished field of view
invokes visionary awareness we call astonishment
to untap the wisdom flow of “wonderstanding.”

Time stands still in the presence of the mystical now.

Dorothee Soelle

For any willing to be wakened
as well those disturbed, troubled
and restless souls,

morning breaks through
dark isolation and degrees of separation
to illumine unseen filaments of connection.

As dewdrops decorate webwork,
mystic stirrings reveal the reverberation
of every trembling, pained or grateful gasp.

Mindfully Misted
Sky sheds her sorrow
as heavy dew condenses
in wakeful soaking.
Joe Grant, Scratchings

In my wooded hermitage
I am enticed out by treetop messengers
who call up the sun.

Speechless and quivering
I stand and stare,
wreathed in the gilded moistness of morning.

Facing a daily deluge
of delight and despair
and a world in sore disrepair,

may you meet the fresh day with peeled heart,
ready to be roused, rebaptized,
and doused in the dewy breath of life,

joe

Scratchings is so much more than a collection of poetry and reflective verse. It is eye-opener, mindfulness-maker, veil-lifter, kinship-keeper. It is a portal into the sacred arising through the ordinary, an entryway into the soul-full-ness of every single thing. Joe’s in-sight and perception not only show us, they teach us: scratch the surface of any single thing and, indeed, you’ll find it lit from within; only “pay dues of attention” to any experience and you’ll find burning bushes at every turn. If you’re wanting a quick read, opt for a different book; if you want to linger with life and swim out into mystery, let Scratchings be your companion.

• JoAnn Gates, Director of Knobs Haven Retreat Center, Loretto, Kentucky