Astronomical Twilight: Vita, Dulcedo

Two years ago after  I came back from Europe, I took advantage of the westbound jet lag to craft the new habit of rising much earlier in the morning than I had during most of my life. Usually I strive to be up well before five. It took months of discipline of going to bed at eight p.m. until it became normal. Now this routine happens naturally.

I prefer to get up during astronomical twilight or before. This time of year, near the apogee of the summer solstice, usually the light will have broken out across the eastern sky by the time I make it out to the patio.

I take a seat on a wooden rocking chair that sits on the patio. It is made in rough-hewn naturalistic style, and was brought from the banks of the Ohio out to the Arizona desert in a moving pod. The chair is backed up the corner of the wall with just enough room to rock, and faces at an angle out towards the sky. The view outward is partly obscured by a rice paper folding screen which will serve to block the harsh sunlight later in the morning when the sun will have risen above the neighboring building to the east.

After taking a seat, I reach down in the dark with my right hand to the small folding table next to the chair and fumble to find the green agate rosary beads. I went for almost six months saying the Rosary daily without a set of beads, relying only on my fingers or my memory to keep track, until I bought these beads online last year. It is foolish not to use beads, I found. It is much more relaxing to use them. It is best to get a set with proper round beads and bits of chain between them. It is the small links of chains between the beads which you clasp as you say each prayer.

On most days I say the Rosary entirely in Latin, as well as the several additional prayers afterwards. I learned the Lord's Prayer in Latin in college in Oregon, for my Latin class. It took weeks and months to learn the rest of the prayers. but now they all came out with fluidly.

On some days, or if I say the Rosary for a second time on a given day, then I will often switch up the languages, usually using Greek for the second decade and the accompanying the Lord's Prayer and the Glory Be. Learning the Greek prayers took the longest, even though I knew some Greek before this. I had to watch Youtube videos with the playback slowed down to half speed, mouthing the syllables slowly.

All the languages have a special feel and beauty in the prayers. One find insight in the variations of syntax and vocabulary. Greek feels so beautiful and elegant after so much Latin.

Then I use different language for each of the three remaining decades, and the accompanying Lord's Prayer and the Glory Be. When saying these prayers in a modern language, I often think of myself as offering up the prayers on behalf of the native speakers of the language, and the nations that have turned away from God in such large numbers. Usually I save English for the last decade, as by then the words have an amazing potency in my native tongue.

I always go back to Latin for the Salve Regina at the end, as it's the only version I know. Even the post-Vatican II Catholic priests often do this in their masses. In the dark, it's impossible not to sing it, softly to myself.