6:44

Well, I did it. It wasn't so bad. In fact, I was actually awake by 6:20 anyway, so I got to sleep in a little after all.

The first thing I did was notice the thought, "I don't have to say I'm giving up the snooze button – I could say I'm getting acquainted with the early morning." I mulled that over as I made the bed, put on my slippers and shambled into the kitchen to put on some water for tea, something I never do at home, as this is more properly the first step in my settling-in-at-the-office routine. Maybe to emphasize the idea that this is the time of year when I try to examine a pattern and practice doing something different, I decided to wipe off the top of the stove while my water was heating, and promptly seared the hell out of my left middle fingertip. That effectively ended any trouble I might have had waking up, as I plunged my entire hand into a small blue bowl of ice water.

And thus it began: my spring practice period for 2007. I've decided to call it "spring training" instead of Lent this year, first of all out of respect to Catholics who might take offense to my weird co-opting of their tradition, and second, because I think it's a more accurate description of what I'm trying to do – train myself. Stepping out of my beloved rut for a few weeks is a great way to increase my awareness of my own thoughts and actions, and hopefully become more free to act appropriately in response to what is actually happening in my life from moment to moment, instead of relying so much on auto-pilot.

This seems to be a theme for me right now. I got to my office and found my horoscope for this week had already been emailed:

Question: Which part of you is too tame, overcivilized, and super-domesticated, and what are you going to do about it? Answer, from Jason R., a Cancerian reader: "I was like a mole in a suburban backyard. I had just one little path I trod each day: to the compost pile and back. I chewed on orange rinds and leftover cabbage. I was tamed by the comfort of my familiar environment, content to have a narrow vision. But then I was eaten by a hawk, and became part of a wild, free body. Now I perch on the tops of trees and the peaks of roofs. I survey giddy-wide horizons, from the river to the mesa and far beyond. I have a wealth of choices. Where to fly? What to hunt? Who are my allies? My thoughts breathe deep, like the slow explosion of sun on the morning lake."

"But then I was eaten by a hawk." I love that! Not that I want to be eaten – but that idea of rising above the fear of change and using it as an opportunity to look at things in a new way – that, I think, is useful, and something I try to remember every year at this time. It all ties into Easter, too, and the whole message of Christianity, as far as I'm concerned – the belief that we are both finite and eternal, that we can choose to die to the life we've lived so far and be reborn with a new understanding of who we are, that this can happen every day, every moment, at any time, and that this is something to celebrate!

I like the way Christianity embodies this concept in the physical being called Jesus. It makes me nervous to write about this, because I don't want to offend certain people or make them feel bad that I believe something different than what they believe ... but with that disclaimer I'll go ahead and say that I really like the story of the resurrection! I like the Buddhist way of teaching the same idea of impermanence, that we have no fixed identity, that nothing has any inherent existence, that some things are just a mystery ... but I will admit that it's been hard for me to really understand these ideas in the language of Buddhism, sometimes (although that could be because I grew up speaking a different symbolic language). The story of an actual guy who came back from the dead makes it all seem so much more real – he's a person, I'm a person, I've seen people die, I'm not just thinking about all this, I know what it's like. And if it's possible for a dead person to come back to life, then maybe it really could be possible for me to change, too. I could stop being addicted to sugar, for example. Or start waking up earlier in the morning.

Maybe that's why so many people feel so compelled to insist on a literal interpretation of the story. They somehow feel like if he didn't really die and really come back, then the whole story falls apart. But to me it doesn't. Wasn't Jesus famous for teaching via parables, anyway? And what parable could be more compelling than one about the dead guy who got his life back? He was dead, and then he got his LIFE BACK.

Form and emptiness, emptiness and form. Funny that only by studying Buddhism is all this starting to sink in with me.

(Sigh) I dunno. I'm no theologian, and I'm okay with that. Today I am just enjoying thinking about the possibilities that may arise for me once I get into the groove of this earlier-morning thing.

P.S. Just before I woke up this morning I dreamed I was doing yoga, resting comfortably in a full forward bend (Paschimothanasana) – like this, only stretched out on the floor. It felt so good (in the dream) to stretch my back and legs, and to be able to relax and breathe in this position – something I used to be able to do, but not anymore. I decided to make that a goal, too – not to have accomplished by Easter, but just something to work toward. Maybe next year I'll be able to take a nap like this! (And yes, I'm already beginning to obsess about naps – yet another benefit of early rising – better naps!)