From late last March on, I noticed I had lost the ability to sleep past 5:45am (not that 2020 wasn’t rife with reasons as to why). No matter what I tried or how late I stayed up the night before, I just could not sleep past this arbitrary barrier. Fretting about my predicament didn’t help, in fact it only made the problem worse as I would then get up earlier. As spring led to summer and then into fall, I would rise out of bed in the darkness of the early morning; jealous of the world sound asleep. But then, I slowly began to embrace this early morning magic and realized it for the gift it is. My previous habit of making coffee as fuel and then flinging myself into work and daily obligations was replaced with making coffee as more of a cherished ritual that kicked off my day before client emails and message dings. I made time for myself to read, think, contemplate and create; practices that often fell by the wayside in more hectic times. Now I’ve come to embrace this divine wakefulness as not just a daily promise to myself but as a joyful stoking of promise for the day ahead.