In the Morning Hours

For years my daily morning routine consisted of popping out of bed, showering, dressing, getting in the car, stopping for a bagel and coffee on the fly, and plopping my butt behind my desk at 7:00 or 7:15.  One hour, plus or minus a few minutes, from eyes open to eyes reading or writing legal documents.  Admittedly, one of the reasons I got to work early was so that I didn't have to stay late - nights were chock full of personal and family activities that were far more interesting.  It wasn't that I was ever a total workaholic.  But still, anxious as I was each day to get work started so I could get it over, I never learned the art of beginning a day with grace.

For the last year or two I have embraced a very different routine.  I set my inner clock to wake around 6:00 (not hard since my inner kidneys are pretty active causing my inner bladder to cry for relief often during the night).  I get up, throw on chef's pants, wool socks and a sweatshirt, greet the cats outside our bedroom door (Bentley pauses for a quick head rub on the stairs but Mufasa runs as fast as his fat belly allows to wait by the food bowl), make tea while the cats whine (as a simple exercise to remind myself that is okay to take care of myself as well as others), feed the cats, and sit in my favorite reading spot.  I start with a Sudoku puzzle, then spend time with three or four books that I have by my seat.  One relates to spirituality, one relates to psychology or science, one relates to history or current events, and one is poetry (novels I save for night time reading).  I make more tea as needed.  Around 8:00 I wander upstairs to get ready for work (if it is a workday) or to wake Cary up (if it is not).  I am very pleased to have spent this time with myself and very grumpy when I have to cut it short to get the car in for an early appointment or leave for an early business meeting.

My new routine was born in part out my early morning insomnia (and a desire to let my poor wife sleep in peace without my tossing and turning), in part by time freed up as a result of a conscious decision to work fewer hours, and in part by my growing fascination with the "integral vision" and the "integral life practice" being continually developed by Ken Wilber and his friends at the Integral Institute.  With age I have come to see fewer absolutes and have developed a heightened appreciation for the interconnectedness of beings, things, thoughts, and phenomena.  The Integral Vision provides a fascinating and stimulating framework within which to explore this interconnectedness, with direct application to the way we relate to ourselves, our cultural and personal relationships, our political and social structures, the world and, indeed, the universe.  Were I Supreme Benevolent Dictator of the Universe, I would make "Integral Life Practice" a required course for all the myopic politicians, religious zealots, corporate profiteers, and despots in this stressed out world.

That I am drawn to integral studies shouldn't surprise me.  Beginning when I was about ten I devoured "Doc Savage" adventures and longed, deep in my heart, to be just like him.  Doc Savage was a normal man who had, from his  childhood days, extensively trained his mind and his body so that he was very strong and agile and outrageously good at almost everything.  Like Superman, Doc could have used his extraordinary powers for personal gain, but chose to devote himself to righting wrongs.   I wonder if Ken Wilber read Doc Savage adventures, too, when he was a kid - Doc was, truth be told, the original integral life practitioner. So even as I drill down into the depths of this exciting new way to learn and grow, I have to smile when I think of little buzz-cut Brad wanting to save the world and believing (at some level, at least) that he could if only he were as disciplined as Doc.  These days, sipping tea in the early morning with a fat, temporarily sated cat stretched out by my side, I am content to understand the world a little better and to make things better in the modest ways I can.