When do you read? For pleasure and inspiration, not for work or education, when is your favorite reading time?

For me, it’s typically the last couple of hours of the day. The evening light in my reading and meditation room, the stillness, a cup of tea, a deep dive into another world. It’s perfect. Except…

These days, there’s one wonder of a book that requires a special kind of attention, even as I read it for the second time. I really had to feel into when it was the right time for me to read this one, and it turned out to be first thing in the morning, still in bed.

It’s as if Orbital wants to be read with a mind that has this special morning ability to be open but not sharp, floating yet focused.

It’s good to start the day with a sense of soft wonder. And it’s also good to be reminded that I’m not the only one who during the day may find it difficult to share my experiences with others. Perhaps living a rather contemplative life (with all the usual practicalities of it) isn’t all that different from living on a space station orbiting the Earth?

She finds she often struggles for things to tell people at home, because the small things are too mundane and the rest is too astounding and there seems to be nothing in between, none of the usual gossip, the he-said-she-said, the ups and downs; there is a lot of round and round. There’s a lot of contemplation of how it’s possible to get nowhere very fast.

And also, the wonder of it. Like when the astronauts have watched the aurora above the Antarctic:

Remember this, each of them thinks. Remember this

But I forget. Because every beautiful moment of the day makes me forget the previous one. And so at the end of the day, after I lay a book down and get ready for bed, I can hardly remember everything I experienced that day. But then, I can feel it. The gratitude.