“Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.  Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also — if you love them enough.”

– George Washington Carver

When was the last time you stopped to talk to a flower?  We live so close to other people that sometimes we forget the sort of quiet solitude that could offer such an opportunity.  Maybe that is the reason why I love my early morning walks as much as I do.  Yes, there are the sunrises.  They are great incentive to venture out and take in a bit of free beauty; but I think the real bonuses of being awake when most of the world lies sleeping lie in the silence and the solitude.  In the early morning silence, I can hear my own thoughts most clearly.  There is nothing to interrupt them and no distraction to pull me away from hearing my own heart beating out its life rhythm.  In the early morning silence, I can hear each bird as it adds its song to the sunrise symphony that announces the arrival of a new day.  It is only in the last century that we have invented ways to align music with colored lights and provide a multi-sensory experience for the listener.  Nature has done this since the dawn of time; but the noise we contribute all but drowns it out.

The solitude of morning allows me to speak from my heart without turning to see whether anyone might be listening or thinking that it is strange of me to answer the call of the crows as they announce my arrival in their territory.  There is no one to evaluate my sanity when I look toward the treetop and ask the unseen towhee just what it is he is trying to tell me.  There is no one there to see him reveal his location and cock his head and sing as though his song were meant for my ears alone.  If I feel like singing, I sing; but mostly I am silent on my early morning walks.  I speak only in my own mind, from my own heart, admiring the wonder of the world as I pass through it.  The delicate petals of a flower opening to the sun remind me to bring gentility to the day.  The dew drops on the grass show me the abundance that is freely given in the form of life-giving water.  The stones I love to collect show me all the textures and sorts of people who share the earth — some are coarse and rough, some are smooth as silk, some glitter and shine like crystals in the light of the rising sun.  There is much to be learned from loving the things of nature.  They are great practice for loving the people we meet.  It is in loving freely all that surround us that we discover the wisdom buried deep within us.  Only through loving can it come to light — only through loving can we learn our own secrets as well.