The Breeze Before Dawn

The Breeze Before Dawn

When the Soul Remembers What the Body Forgets

By Kateb Shunnar

There’s something about that thin hour right before the sun yawns its way into the sky, when the world hasn’t decided yet whether it wants to wake or keep on dreaming. It’s quiet, but not dead quiet it’s the kind of quiet that hums. The kind of air that makes you feel like somebody just whispered your name, but you can’t see who. That’s the breeze at dawn. It doesn’t push, doesn’t shove, doesn’t demand it just brushes past you soft as your grandmother’s hand on your cheek, and if you pay attention, if you don’t roll over and bury your head under the blanket of routine, you’ll notice it carrying a secret. It’s the universe leaning close saying, “Stop playing small. Don’t you know who you are? You’re not some fragile speck blown around by chance you’re the whole storm and the calm after it, wrapped up in skin and breath.” Most people miss it. They roll back into the sleep of forgetting, thinking the real world is their job alarm or the bills stacked on the table. But if you catch it if you let that dawn breeze slip into you—you’ll remember that you are not just here to survive, you are here to stretch, to laugh, to stumble, to heal, to be the universe watching itself move.

Now I know, some of this sounds like a fortune cookie that’s trying too hard. But listen, I’m not here to hand out Hallmark comfort. The truth I’m talking about is the kind that messes with your furniture, moves things around in your chest, makes you sit down mid-step because something in you suddenly shifts. Pain? Oh, everybody wants to run from it like it’s a bill collector, but pain is the lesson that keeps knocking until you open the door. And when you finally let it in, it does the strangest thing it changes you. Pain is not the enemy. It’s the crack where the light pours in. The Creator doesn’t toss out cheap consolations like carnival trinkets; what He offers is transformation. He offers the alchemy that turns your ordinary bruises into extraordinary wisdom. One day that very thing that broke you will be the thing that heals you. And don’t we hate hearing that when we’re in the thick of it? We roll our eyes, mutter, “Yeah right,” and still the truth waits for us to catch up.

I don’t want these words sitting flat and lifeless like something you skim in line at the grocery store. I want them to hum, to breathe, to carry heat like a trumpet riffing down Bourbon Street. I want them to feel alive in your chest long after you set them aside. If you let them, they’ll walk beside you until something inside you begins to loosen. Because when you really hear it, you can’t go back to being the same.

The heart, now that’s a wanderer. It lives in your chest, sure, but it refuses to settle down. It’s got its own suitcase packed with longings for places it’s never been yet somehow remembers like home. That ache inside you that restless tug that makes you stare out windows too long it’s older than your bones, older than your mama’s hymns, older than this spinning ball we’re clinging to. I know that ache well. Before anyone called me a writer of the spirit, I was just a man stacking books, thinking I could study my way into peace, while my soul leaned against the wall smirking, whispering, “Read all you want, son, but sooner or later, you’ll remember who you are.”

And speaking of remembering, let me give you a story, because in New Orleans, wisdom doesn’t always come wrapped in clean sermons. Sometimes it arrives smelling like red beans and laughter, sometimes carried on the wind with a punchline. Stories are how truth sneaks past our stubbornness. There once was a man named Old Man Zephyr, a neighborhood character if there ever was one, and he swore he could catch the dawn breeze in a jar. Every morning before sunrise, he’d drag out his creaky stool, balance himself like a king on a throne, and holler at the sky. He said he was going to trap the wind, screw the lid on tight, and sell it at the market. “Why bother peddling shrimp or pecans,” he said, “when you can sell the very breath of morning? Folks will pay top dollar for a jar of fresh beginnings.”

The kids laughed so hard they almost sprained something. They called him “the breeze boss” and waved empty jars of their own, pretending to open them up: “Look! Mine’s got a hurricane inside!” Zephyr didn’t care. Thick skin, sharp tongue. He sat there day after day, waving his jar like a fisherman with invisible bait. “Come on now, wind, don’t be shy!” And when the neighbors laughed, he just winked. “You’ll see, I’ll be richer than a beignet stand on Mardi Gras morning.”

One day, after months of this foolishness, he screwed the lid tight and declared with his chest puffed up so wide it looked like he swallowed a tuba, “I got it! The dawn breeze is mine!” Everybody crowded around. He twisted open the lid… nothing. Not a puff, not even a whisper. The whole street broke down laughing. Somebody shouted, “Careful, don’t let all that nothing escape!” Another said, “Zephyr, baby, if you’re selling hot air, you’re already rich.”

But here’s the kicker. Years later, nobody remembered the teasing. What they remembered was the lesson. Parents told their children, “Don’t waste your life trying to trap what’s meant to flow. You can’t bottle the breeze. You can only breathe it.” And wouldn’t you know, Old Man Zephyr became a legend. Not for catching the wind because he never did but because he reminded people not everything is meant to be owned. Some things are holy because they can’t be caged.

And I’ll tell you the truth, we’re all a little like Zephyr. Trying to catch what can’t be caught. We chase happiness like it’s a loose chicken in the yard, feathers flying everywhere, and then get mad when it slips out of our hands. We treat the Divine like a vending machine, sliding in our prayer and expecting a blessing to drop with a clunk. And when it doesn’t, we start banging on the sides muttering, “This thing must be broken.” But the Spirit doesn’t work like that. You can’t schedule grace like it’s a doctor’s appointment, you can’t bottle joy like its moonshine, you can’t own peace like property. You can only open your hands, breathe it in, and let it move through you.

That’s why the dawn is sacred. That’s why the breeze before sunrise matters. Because in that thin, fragile space, the universe itself leans close, whispering, “Remember who you are.” And if you’re awake enough, if you’re listening instead of scrolling, you might just hear it.

I’ve sat on porches in New Orleans at five in the morning, and I swear the air itself carries history. It smells like yesterday’s gumbo, last night’s jazz, and tomorrow’s hope all tangled together. Cicadas still buzzing, somebody’s trumpet down the block still trying to land its final note from the night before, the streetlights blinking like they’re confused about whether to stay or go. And in the middle of all that, the breeze comes, sliding across your face like a grandmother’s blessing. It’s gentle, but it’s not empty it carries sorrow, laughter, memory, promise. That’s the Spirit. Not loud, not flashy, but steady. Always there, always breathing if you just pay attention.

So maybe Old Man Zephyr wasn’t so crazy. Maybe he knew the joke and played it just so the rest of us could laugh our way into wisdom. Maybe he was trying to tell us not to waste our lives chasing after jars of nothing, but to wake up and breathe what’s already free. Because here’s the truth: you are not small. You are not forgotten. You are not a passenger drifting helplessly through a cold cosmos. You are the dawn itself aching, stumbling, laughing, healing, rising in ecstatic motion.

And whatever you do, don’t try to sell it in a jar.

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