Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

November 19, 2019

6:34AM-7:25AM

*Dawn*

I arrived to my sit spot at 6:30 in the morning.The sun was rising steadily as the dawn slowly came to an end. I had never thought that I would be outside jotting down observations that early in the morning before, but I did. I chose to do my sit spot at that time of day, because previously I did my 4th blog post at 11PM at night. Thus, I thought doing a dawn sit-spot would have been a pretty cool contrast; I also wanted to opportunity to enjoy the morning before classes started.

My sit spot had changed drastically since my last session. Most of the leaves from the sycamore had finally fallen onto the ground creating an even larger pile of leaves beneath it and in the stream as well. The leaves of the Sycamore have thinned so much that I can actual see their fruits! I’m actually not sure if I’ve just overlooked them this whole time or if the tree has just randomly grew them in a week. The Mulberry tree lost all of its leaves completely and the Willow was still hanging on to theirs.

The weather was pretty cold; I believe it was around 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Thankfully there were no winds that made it feel colder. As I looked around there was a morning fog that still lingered from the night before, making the sky look gray and pretty much washed out all the color around me. While I surveyed the sky, I witnessed my first animal! A flock of geese flew right above me and I later checked my compass to see that they were actually flying North. I thought that was a strange direction for them to be going because of course geese migrate to warmer climates to escape the cold, however, for these geese this simply was not the case. Maybe they were making a pit stop? My second group of animals I saw/ heard were song birds of some sort. I have no idea what they were and I could hardly see what they looked like because they were so high up in a large Mulberry tree. These birds were making whistling sounds, kind of like a slide whistle.

Because I’ve never been to my sit-spot at this time of day before I would say that I really loved this early morning experience to connect with nature. I’m not going to lie, I was very tired but having to be aware of all the little details that occurred around me woke me up by forming me to use my senses.Overall, the session was peaceful and provided a beautiful way to start the morning: peace; reflection; and silence. I would definitely do this session again because it made me feel more intone with myself throughout the day.

Compared to my last sit-spot I had a better feeling sitting alone in the morning that I did when I was sitting alone at midnight. I felt safer because I knew people were around. Hearing the birds chitter and chatter made me feel more at ease as well. There was something unusual about not hearing birds at night, but at the same time I understand why they weren’t out; it was sleepy time! Even though, I didn’t hear any birds at night I did get to see dear which I didn’t get to see in this sit-spot session. The deer obviously don’t come out in the morning because they are mainly night foragers and birds typically like to get an early start on their days like responsible little bird people. I’m glad I got to see them all over the course of these two sessions.

Sincerely, Tia