Dawn Chorus

Waking up at 3am is not as innocent as it seems.

In Eastern cultures, it is a time of the soul. An awakening to get up and pray. A time to feel one’s connection with the life within.

Not that I do this very often, mind you. But I am always aware of it when I wake up and see that it is 3am.

During the month of Ramadhan, those who are fasting get up around that time for the morning meal – nowadays consisting primarily of water, as no matter how long the days go on, one never feels like eating at 3am I assure you.  What IS magical however, when the fuzziness of sleep is swept aside with Japanese green tea (remarkably tasty at 3am) – is witnessing the sunrise.

It is a holy time, those wee hours, when the world is still quiet, a time of tangible peace. When the dim rays of light begin to creep over the horizon, one feels: ‘this must be what it was like when creation began.’ Everything begins to come to life. Not the everything of people getting up and minds shifting into gear as the stresses of the day happily make their way to our shoulders – no. The everything of …creation. The trees begin to rustle, as if the leaves awake to greet the sun. The birds – the birds! (and in my neck of the woods, the roosters) – begin to sing. Happily! Never do I hear a sad bird song in the beginning of the day. The birds wake up and happily chirp their harmonious chorus that welcomes the day and all of us to it.

And then, if one lives in a Muslim country, the call to prayer sounds, and that too is a harmonious chorus that seems to put words to the birds (and roosters) song: Praise. Gratitude. Peace. 

Jasmin Webb