My Scottish deerhound efficiently bumps the covers off my feet, exposing them to chill air. I peer at the clock. It’s 5:20 am, and she needs to go outside. I stumble down the stairs to let her outside and sit inside, on the second-from-the-bottom step, where it’s warm. Luckily, she is quick about her business, and I’m back in my warm nest by 5:24. A delicious hour just to be before it’s time to get up.

I’m aware of my husband’s breathing, the heavy sound of deep sleep. My own breath is softer, in-out, in-out. The rain patters, quiet and steady on the roof—a different rhythm, and a syncopating companion in the pre-dawn. Thoughts natter—background brain activity—but they require no attention, and so do not come into focus. I would enjoy remaining just like this for the hour, but the body drifts back into sleepy oblivion.

Time seemingly passes. Native awareness emerges, wakeful. Awareness, unburdened by the motion of “me,” without name or form. For a brief time, there is no identification. Then the earth suit slips back on, familiar, but there’s a mild sense of “oh, must we?” Then once again, “Amrita” lies in bed, aware of weight on the mattress, quiet breathing, the mild aches of a sixty-five-year-old. Embodiment, once again.

It is only in the early morning that there is the experience of awareness with neither a body nor identification. During the day there may be periods of not identifying, but the sensations of the body generally remain. At night, the transition from awake to asleep occurs so quickly that there is not time for the sense of awareness without a body.

I find that morning time precious. There is no way I can recreate it, or make it come. It happens all on its own, always unexpected, always welcome.

© Skye Blaine, 2011