I am a morning person.

India taught me to wake with the sounds of the forest. Hearing the first layer of deep calls from the canopy and then the echoes of the tiniest tweets from the floor. By the time the monkeys were up, my dear friend’s dedicated rustle of her Mala invited me to move to heat the water.

Mindful steps as I poured the filtered water and clicked the button. The only friction in my morning was feeling the button resist against my thumb. I’d wash my face and give a quick swish to refresh my mouth.

I’d hum deep tones. I’d mix the instant coffee and climb back into bed, cup in hand, to watch the light shift over the mountains. They’d change from black to deep gray to pale blue and then don their muted yellows and greens for the day.

As soon as the mountain shifted to green on day three it hit me that I haven’t been up with the light since my last jump in the Army. North Carolina drop zone at 4am is no comparison to 30 miles north of Rishikesh, but the calm of watching the shifts in morning light is the same.

In the military, I did not get to choose my watch or show time for jumps. I rarely got to select my schedule or arise at my own whim. My post-military life required eight years of intentional rest.

Not hyperbole.

I spent almost every weekend, day off, or holiday without my Boys sleeping in until 10am or later. My healing journey after the military required extinguishing the burden that rest was unproductive. The journey demanded I lean into shameless rest - that I give my body much needed softness.

I needed to transition into the softest form of myself so I could hold my heart with the tenderness no one else could. Rest led to feeling again.

Feeling again led to more healing.

I slept in for so many years that it wasn’t until the blissful sunrises at the Atali Ganga that it hit me that I really am a morning person.

And I honor that realization especially so on Sundays.

I allow Sunday to be so slow that it may not evolve into anything productive.

I give sweet permission for another cup of coffee or relighting the incense laced with lotus blossom and waterlily.

I bask in the glow of nothing to do but breathe. And enjoy the peace I've carved into my corner of the world.

And in this rest, I find something new - another layer of the spiral.

A depth only tapped by peace.

I lift a prayer for those inside me or external still fighting, clawing, starving for what I have now and I am safe enough in my Sundays to feel.

The rage about it.

The grief about it. The shame about it. The guilt about it.

I feel as a morning person.