Three mornings of wonder. Three consecutive mornings of ineffable wonder.

It all began at 5:30 a.m. this past Saturday.* It was pitch dark and very cold, and as I walked down Research Road toward farmland, I kept saying to myself, “You are crazy. You aren’t going to see anything now. The sun doesn’t rise until 6:40!” I almost turned back. But when I got to Beaver Dam Creek Bridge and looked East, I saw something I had never before seen in farmland and just stared, stunned. I didn’t leave until an hour later.

The next morning, clouds were nowhere to be seen which was disappointing because that typically means no diffused vibrant shades of red, orange, pink, purple and yellow to witness and capture. I retreated to my favorite tree, Ripley, and as always, she did not disappoint. She was gloriously lit and alive.

Yesterday morning, my Cloud Cover iPhone app indicated “0%” cloud cover, but I headed out to farmland anyway to check out Goose Pond which I hadn’t visited for over a week. About a half mile away from the pond, the sky portended something wonder-full ahead.

With my trekking poles, I walked as fast as I could to Goose Pond. Two hundred yards away, my jaw began to drop. When I arrived at the pond, I discovered why.

I stood on the pond bank for 30 minutes. As I walked out, I took one last photo. More clouds were moving across the sky, hiding the sun. It was time for me to move, too.

As I trekked back home, I was reminded of a quote I had recently read by Henry David Thoreau: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Over the past three days, I had seen so much. I had rested in the grace of the world, and had been free.+

The photo at the top of this post of geese was taken yesterday at 7:46 a.m.

(*Technically not the start of the weekend, but I liked the alliteration of “weekend” with the word, “wonder”. Also, this past Friday morning was a complete washout.)

(+Thank you, Wendell Berry.)