Start Your Day Mindfully in Nature’s Calm: Morning Time in July

Happy July! I hope you are taking time to care for yourself during the extremely stressful, sad, and disheartening events unfolding each day in our nation and around the world.

As those of you who have followed me know, I love sitting in my garden and taking in the sights and sounds of nature — particularly in the morning. It’s a relaxing mindfulness practice that fills me with calm to start my day. There’s nothing like sipping a comforting cup of coffee amid the colorful birds and flowers of my garden.

How we start the morning can have an outsized effect on how we face whatever the day brings. If you doubt this, check out this article, “The One Thing You Should Never, Ever Do in the First Hour After Waking Up, According to Cardiologists.”

Yep, it’s the exact thing many of us have become conditioned to doing: checking our phone. According to the article:

“There are a few reasons for this, but the most obvious one is that our phones and the constant stream of information (and misinformation) we get from them can stress us the hell out — but it goes even beyond that, warns Dr. Alexandra Kharazi, MD, FACS, cardiothoracic surgeon at Southern California Surgical.

“It’s not just about stress hormones. It’s about what kind of day that habit sets in motion,” she tells “Parade.”

Scrolling may seem harmless, but it puts us in a passive, reactive mode. Starting our morning with the disaster du jour of politics and news, we’re more likely to be triggered with anxiety, worry, and stress. It also takes up time we could be devoting to healthier pursuits — the article mentions “meditating, really savoring your morning coffee or tea, stretching, exercising, walking your dog, or even just spending a few minutes with your loved ones before schlepping off to work.”

I would add writing to that list. I cherish the time I set aside in the morning to listen, look, feel, notice what is around me and inside of me, and write poems such as this one:

It must be a backhoe.
And maybe a dump truck backing up
Beep beep beep

I’m folded into my sit spot
My favorite cushioned cane chair
Under the eaves

Faded green and yellow scraps with brown spots
scatter on the multi-hued gravel at my feet
The leaves let go of the carob tree and land with a thwack

Coffee in one of my mom’s tall lavender mugs
New poetry book
And peach from our tree
Rest on the cement side table

My favorite post-it tabs lift their orange, yellow
and blue squares in a hello
ready to be plucked and smoothed
on lovingly selected pages

A lizard doing push-ups in the dappled light
Bees kissing wild white rose bushes
petals making bright thumb prints
in the rich brown earth

The Spotted Towhee breaks through the airwaves
with his trill, while under or over his sound
there comes a chorus from
House Finch
House Sparrow
Northern Mockingbird
American Crow
Wrentit
Hummingbird
The low cooing of Morning Doves

A Red-Tailed Hawk screams in circles
against the clear blue sky, a scoop of moon
stuck straight up like a pale-white, upside-down smile

Now my dogs are barking
Hearing the men at the construction site
behind our Garden of Eden

Cacophony of noise and dazzling color
So much life
Such gratitude

“Morning Time in July” is an example of how I sit, look, and listen. It’s a morning mindfulness practice that grounds me in the here and now of nature. I have dozens of these poems — each one similar but different, because every morning is different.

So what are your favorite morning mindfulness rituals? Whatever they may be, I hope they set you on a path of health, peace, and rejuvenation each and every day.