The way to start a day

The way to start a day is this-

Go outside and face the east
and greet the sun with some kind of blessing
or chant
or song
that you made yourself
and keep for
early morning.

The way to make the song is this-
Don’t try to think
what words to use
until you’re standing there alone.

When you feel the sun,
you’ll feel the song too.
Just sing it.

But don’t think you’re
the only one
who ever worked that magic.

Your caveman brothers
knew what to do.
Your caveman sisters
knew too.
They sang to help the sun
come up
and lifted their hands to its power.

A morning needs
to be sung to.
A new day needs
to be honoured.

People have always known that.

Didn’t they chant
at dawn
in the sun temples
of Peru?

And leap and sway
to Aztec flutes
in Mexico?

And drum
sunrise songs
in the Congo?

And ring a thousand
small gold bells
in China?

Didn’t the pharaohs of Egypt
say the only sound
at dawn
should be the sound of songs
that please the morning sun?

They knew what songs to sing.

People always seemed to know.

And everywhere they knew
what gifts the sun wanted.

In some places
they gave gold.
In some places
they gave
flowers.
In some places,
sacred smoke blown to the four directions.
Some places feathers and good thoughts.
Some places fire.

But

everywhere they knew
to give something.

And everywhere
they knew to turn
their faces
eastward
as the sun came up.

Some people still know.

When the first
pale streak of light
cuts through the
darkness,
wherever they are,
those people
make offerings and send
strong mysterious songs
to the sun.

They knew exactly how to start a day.

Their blessings float
on the wind over
Pueblo cornfields in New Mexico,

and
you hear their morning songs
in villages in Africa,

and
they salute the sunrise ceremonially
in the high cold mountains of Peru.


Today
long before dawn
they were already waiting
in Japan
with prayers and they were
gathering at little shrines
in India
with marigolds in their hands.

They were
bathing in the sacred
Ganges River as the sun came up.


And high on a mesa edge
in Arizona
they were holding a baby
toward the sun.

They were speaking
the child’s new name
so the sun would hear
and know that child.

It had to be
sunrise.
and it had to be that first
sudden moment.
That’s when all
the power life
is in the sky.


Some people
say
there is a new sun
every day,
that it begins
its life at dawn
and lives for one day only.

They say you have to welcome it.

You have to make the sun happy.

You have to make a good day for it.

You have to make
a good world for it to live its
one-day life in.

And the way to start,
they say, in just by
looking east at dawn.

When they look
east tomorrow,
you can too.

Your song will be an offering-

And you’ll be one more person
in one more place
at one more time
in the world
saying
hello to the sun,
letting it know
you are there.

If the sky turns a colour
sky never was before

Just watch it.

That’s part of the magic.

That’s the way to start a day.

By Byrd Baylor and illustrated by Peter Parnall