An Aussie morning gift

This morning I reluctantly rose early. I would have killed for a sleep-in because I had one of those nights where I had trouble sleeping.  I walked into the study, sat at the computer and looked out the window at my garden and the bush reserve at the back.

I never wanted to be a photographer more.  After a week of torrential rain and dark days it was as if someone had strung fairy lights all through the bush. The trees and ferns and plants were sparkling with hundreds of tiny lights, even the grass.  The sun streamed through the trees lighting soft shafts of light through the fine morning mist.  It was like those photos you see where clever photographers have caught the streams of light spearing through from behind an amazing tree. Here and there one light seemed to sparkle brighter as if to say “look at me – look at me”.  An errant breeze whispered through the leaves for just a few seconds stirring the sparkles and then the bush settled back into the morning stillness.

I wish I had the skill to describe this and share with you.  It is particularly wonderful because of the awful weather we have had this last week and indeed for most of the summer just gone.   Look -  there goes another ‘Look at me” sparkle and I know this is a leaf spinning on the end of one strand of cobweb but it’s too far away to see more than the magic sparkle.

The sun lays pathways across the grass, and further back it spotlights individual pockets of the bush, contrasting them against the darker shadowy pockets where the sun can’t quite reach. There between the ends of two branches of the wattle tree is a delicately fine spider web  shining golden in the sun – a golden orb spider has spun this one,- while nearby another misty grey spider web shimmers like a tiny bit of soft grey mist.  And look, there is a tiny spider web seemingly suspended in mid-air with no visible support.  This one you would never see except for the few moments the sun has caught it just so this morning. And see there in the garden the sun now scatters the fairy lights on a few of the plants and on the vine covering the back fence. 

I open the window to hear the birds more clearly and their songs echo in the slightly misty air seeming to celebrate this bright morning.  And if I listen carefully I can hear the little creek down the back bubbling and burbling along its way.  This is fairly rare because the creek really only runs like this after heavy rainfall. So everything brings its own blessing.

Wouldn’t you know – I left my I-phone at work last night and I can’t take even an amateur photo of this.  As I sit here the scene begins to change as the sun rises higher.  My bush - as I like to think of it -  presents a different picture depending on the time of day, or the weather, or the season. Each picture uniquely beautiful, in its own way ever new and fascinating.

But this morning its absolute MAGIC.  I look at the clock and know I have to stop very soon and prepare for the work of the day but OH how I want to just sit here and drink in this scene that’s so particularly precious after the days of gloomy shadow and rain.  It brings and joy and amazement to my heart.  If only I had the time to just sit and meditate on this wonderful picture.  But I know it will soon change as the sun moves higher and I realize it has been a little gift that I had to be up at just this time to see this snapshot of beauty today. And I once again feel how blessed I am to have my home in this place and the opportunity to see such wonders in my backyard. A heartfelt wish that you could see this too, particularly those of you who haven’t seen the Australian bush.  We Aussies truly live in the amazing ‘lucky ‘country.