« Home | Irish New Year's » | Sandpaper in your ears » | Winter solstice » | Stress tests » | The Mike Leach campaign » | The hip joint is shot » | Those Grinchy catalogues » | A song for a lifetime » | A new destination » | Wedding Day »

Happy New Year!


Good morning and Happy New Year from San Diego! This was our New Year’s dawn; first light was about 5:30, these were the colors at 6:30, and the sun rose a couple of minutes before 7.

Karen and I watch these events every morning from the glider on the south porch of our house. We call it “Glider Time.” It is just the finest way to start the day: coffee and the colors of the dawn, and quiet talk about our lives and the day to come.

Our ancient ancestors in the Northern Hemisphere knew about the sun settling lower and lower into the southern sky as the days lost their length and their warmth. It must have seemed to them that the sun was going away and eventually would disappear, leaving them to survive in the dark, which they feared, and the cold, which they knew could kill them.

But then a day arrived when the sun turned around and came back toward them, giving them longer days and gathering warmth. They learned to identify that day, which we know now as the Winter Solstice, and to celebrate it, for their salvation and for the promise of new light and warmth it brought them.

The same is true of every sunrise, bringing new light and warmth to our potential on this earth to make the best of it. A beautiful sunset is the rainbow of a day’s storm passing, promising the sun’s return from darkness. A beautiful sunrise is the fulfillment of that promise, offering us all a blank new day to fill to the best of our potential. The Jan. 1 dawn is the strongest symbol of that potential, coming so soon after the Winter Solstice and on the first morning of the cycle of days by which we measure our lives and our history. We watched the sun’s beautiful heraldry this New Year’s morning, awakening us to the promise of this first day, and of the year to come.

Our intention is to share every San Diego sunrise with you this year and welcome you to join us daily to share the beauty and feel the promise.

Thank you for the sunrise photo, and the happy thoughts.

Post a Comment

Links to this post

Create a Link

Writing Service

About me

  • I am a journalist, educator, writing consultant and author, living in La Mesa, CA. I am a native of Texas, which shows in most of my work. I believe that anything is possible. When I was 35, I realized that the ideal life would be to have the imagination of a six-year-old, and the wisdom of a 65-year-old. I can still get to the imagination (as you can, simply by cutting away all the data you’ve learned from first grade on) and I now possess the wisdom of a 65-year-old. Being 65 can be unsettling – too late to plant trees and enjoy the shade – but the wisdom that comes with it is terrific compensation. I learned in 50th grade that, no matter how bad things get, there is always compensation. Now I am in the 60th grade, and I am learning things that I didn’t know in 59th. This September, I’ll start 61st grade, and learn things I don’t know now. To find what grade you’re in, start with the year you started 12th grade, and count up. My newest book is “Warbirds – How They Played the Game.” My new company is The Write Outsource, quality media writing on deadline, at www.writeoutsource.com. I am working on a book about the media, and I am about to revise my cookbook about home cooking on a tight budget, such as so many of us face at this time.
  • My Profile

Contact me

michaelgrant2 [at] cox.net

Syndication