It was another beautiful morning on the ridge. As I walked the dogs around their morning patrol, I stopped for a moment in the open field, closed my eyes, and took in the sunshine and sounds of a hundred song birds. The vast variety of calls, tweets, cheeps, and twittering come together in an orchestra that no man could conduct. I open my eyes and take in the glistening horizon of newly greening grass, still covered in the morning dew. The wind blows my hair sideways, and the words of Henry David Thoreau echo in my mind.

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

~Joy