*

*

“The most powerful time to pray or meditate,” Satya tells me, “is between three and five a.m.”  She leans back in the peacock chair.  On her lap is a cat with the oddest markings, black and white splotches more like a cow than a cat.  The dog, Belle, sits at Satya’s feet.  It licks her toes with long, tender strokes. 

            “That must tickle,” I think, but Satya seems not to notice. 

            “That’s when the higher spirits are most accessible,” Satya adds.

            “Like archangels?” I ask.

            “Mmm.  Uriel and Gabriel, mostly.  Michael and Raphael are busy with the dead and dying.”

            Am I really having this conversation?  Satya’s patio is overhung with sprays of maple leaves turning red at the edges.

            “I’m a morning person,” I say, “but that’s even a bit early for me.  I like the quiet before the household wakes up.”  Today I hold a mug of Satya’s homemade chai, a mixture of black tea, milk, turmeric, ginger and honey.  It’s golden, warm in my hands and in my center.

            Satya smiles with her wide pansy-blue eyes. “I’m usually up by three. The spirits wake me.  I can feel their energy.  It’s a lovely time of day, so new, unspoiled. So soft.”

            “What do you do at three a.m.?”  Sometimes I feel like I’m in the presence of a saint, like Mirabai or Teresa of Avila.  And sometimes I think maybe they were right to commit her.  But Satya does no harm to anyone.

            “Oh, I take a shower.  Make up some chai and sit with the animals a bit.  Then I align my energy field for the day.  And I meditate, of course.  And pray.  Do some visioning.  Nothing special.”

            I think of my morning, starting at about six a.m., when the sudden shrill of the alarm clock frightens me out of some odd, rambling dream.  After my heart stops pounding, I get up, start the coffee, and make the kids’ lunches.  Go back upstairs, give my husband a poke in the ribs and hustle into the bathroom before the kids take over.

            What if angels woke me at three a.m.? 

Nothing special, Satya says.  Nothing special.