A section from the journey

Ushas, the Dawn

Ushas is the goddess of the dawn. She comes every morning, fresh and bright, and pulls back the dark. The rishis sang to her some of their most beautiful hymns. She is old, for she has dawned forever, yet young, for each new day she is new again.

After the thunder of the storm-king, let us turn to something soft. Picture the first grey light at the edge of the night. It grows. It warms to rose and gold. The dark draws back. The rishis watched this every morning, and they gave it a name and a face. Her name is .

Ushas is the dawn itself, seen as a young goddess. She comes from the east, the singers said, like a bright woman walking toward them. She is glad and generous. She opens the day the way you might open a door to a waiting friend.

And she wakes the world. At her coming the birds rise. People stir from sleep and go out to their work. The cattle are led to pasture. The fires are lit. Wherever there was stillness and dark, Ushas brings movement and light.

The hymns to Ushas are some of the most beautiful the rishis ever made. They sing of her not as a fierce power but as a kind one. She is the gentle face of the morning, sure and welcome, asking nothing but giving the whole day.

But the singers saw something tender in her too. Ushas is very old, for she has dawned more mornings than anyone could ever count. And yet she is always young, for each morning she is new. She comes, and goes, and comes again. She wears out the nights, the rishis said, yet she herself never grows old.

There is a quiet lesson hidden in that. Each of us is given mornings, one after another, more than we can keep track of. Ushas returns to remind us that the light always comes back — and that no two of her dawns are ever quite the same.

Tomorrow, if you can, watch the sky lighten before the day begins. People have greeted that same returning light for thousands of years. What does it stir in you to know the dawn has never once failed to come?