From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAwakening is a passage from sleep or inattention into active awareness.
- In TraherneTo awake in Heaven each morning is to recognize sky, earth, and air as the Father's palace.
- In this editionThe noun-heading gathers several verbal forms.
- A place to beginMorning awakening becomes recognition of the world as heavenly gift.
Meaning
Awakening is a passage from sleep or inattention into active awareness. Its spiritual use does not discard the bodily image: it makes an already present world newly available to the soul.
Use in the book
To awake in Heaven each morning is to recognize sky, earth, and air as the Father's palace. No relocation is required. The prayer for the Holy Spirit asks that every power of the soul be awakened into Christ's mind, while the exhortation to awaken the soul turns toward an expansive love beyond bodily limits. These are related but distinct movements: renewed perception, divine enabling, and the exercise of love. Awakening can also begin with uncertainty; news stirs a young hearer's hope that some still unknown happiness is being announced. Its value lies in the object eventually discovered and retained, not in excitement alone.
Places to read
In this edition
The noun-heading gathers several verbal forms. It should not be read as a claim about a later religious movement called an Awakening.
Source note
Primary text: I.28, I.95, II.51, III.25. Each selected primary passage uses an awakening verb; the heading is a normalized access form.