maria emmons

It is interesting to watch the sunrise... it comes very slowly, a little bit at a time. Life is also like that. If we are present, we will enjoy each moment. If we are busy, we will find the sun high in the sky and we have paid little attention.

To feel the times of day more, I have tried to use natural lighting as much as possible. During the day using whatever sunlight to light the room, and at night turning on the bare minimal lights to maintain a sense of darkness. Older homes don't tend to have ceiling lights in each room, so I thought this might help me be more in tune with nature as opposed to continual bright lights all day and night. I wonder how late pioneers stayed up at night during winter hours when it is dark by 7. Did they sit by the fire and tell stories? Or did they get more rest like he plants and animals?

How are sunrise and sunset times set? When I go out at "sunrise" time, it is already light. And when I go out at "sunset" time it takes a half hour to really get dark.

I will have to look into this.

So catching a sunrise isn't hard because I am up early and heading to work. Appreciating it is another story. However, catching a sunset is another story. They seem to sneak up especially if I am not near a window. Maybe this means I need to spend more time near natural lighting and windows? Or I just need to set timers perhaps.

“We must learn to reawaken and keep 
ourselves awake, 
not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite 
expectation of the dawn. … 

The millions are awake enough 
for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. 

To be awake is to be alive.”

 

I feel bad that I haven't directly picked goals to help with nature per say. The goals I picked seemed like maybe a lot, but they are ones I wan to start making a habit. Maybe I can write some of the other Eco ones down to do later too. How often. Do they do the challenges online?

It has been hard to see the sunset on these cloudy days. If you find a patch of clear sky, you can often see some of the lights even if you can't see everything. It is amazing how dark it is at 8 pm and the sunrise isn't usually til 8 am. Nature is telling us it is time to be less active and rest more.

I picked this action because of a beautiful sunset posted below that made me just stop in the driveway and bask in its glow. As fall approached I realized that we lost hours of light, but I felt sad that I didn't remember when that started. I hope to connect to more natural rhythms of life my looking at the sunrise and sunset daily. Hopefully this will give me quiet reflection time in the am and pm.