sunrise

Another near-sleepless night (woke up around 4am). Watched another episode of a very nice morning television program, Sunrise Earth on Animal Planet. If you haven't seen it before, it's a "nature show" but without any narration. Yes, it's 60 minutes of nothing but images and sounds, no talking. Each show chooses a single location, and you watch video of the area at a time on the clock that generally corresponds to the same time that you're watching the show. So it's what you could be watching at that moment instead of the television, if you were just in a better location.

You can see a sample video at the Discovery Channel's online store.

The episodes are visually beautiful, of course, and the sounds range from quiet stillness to loud waterfall.  In some views, you're looking at a river, in others maybe a closeup of a giant leaf spotted with mold.  My favorite episode so far is "Moose in the Morning".  I liked watching the moose stick its nose under water and come up, munching on the algae, slowly chewing while standing there in the fog-laden lakeshore.

I shouldn't watch this show.  It definitely feeds my "walk into the forest" urge.  But it's just so peaceful.