all'alba (on fire)

'It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, 

in measures being kindled and in measures going out' (Heraclitus)

Whenever I go to Sicily, I take with me some writings by Annie Dillard. Her disposition, language and challenge somehow dovetail with the light, the blazing sea, the awakening of body, senses, perceptions. The invitation to rise with the sun, and to slow down into an amplified, extravagant, elemental everyday: rock, salt, sky, glare, water, skin, shadow. To be awake, there where you are, with the gods of the day:

'These are morning matters, pictures you dream as the final wave heaves you up on the sand to the bright light and drying air. You remember pressure, and a curved sleep you rested against, soft, like a scallop in its shell. But the air hardens your skin; you stand; you leave the lighted shore to explore some dim headland, and soon you're lost in the leafy interior, intent, remembering nothing ...

Kazantzakis says that when he was young he had canary and a globe. When he freed the canary, it would perch on the globe and sing ...

Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will and sense them. The least we can do is try to be there ...

The whole show has been on fire since the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames ...

I walk out; I see something, some event that would have been utterly missed and lost; or something sees me, some enormous power brushes me with its clean wing, and I resound like a beaten bell'.

(Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)