Why this inspired us
An ancient poet looked at an ordinary sunrise and saw two things at once: a morning that follows countless mornings before it, and the first of all the mornings still to come. Every new day carries both.
Explore a verse
Rig Veda 1.113.8
The reference printed on your card, and the idea behind it.
In its original context
Hymn 1.113, in the first book of the Rig Veda, is credited to the poet Kutsa and is one of the most beautiful of the many hymns to Dawn. In the Vedas, Dawn is pictured as a young woman, daughter of the sky, who arrives every morning to wake the world, light the roads and set everyone back to work.
This verse watches her come. She follows the path of the dawns who have already gone, the poet says, and she is the first of the endless dawns still to come. Shining, she rouses everything that lives and wakes even those who lay as still as the dead, meaning the sleepers.
The whole hymn keeps returning to this wonder: Dawn is unimaginably old and yet completely young. A later verse says she has always dawned, dawns now and will dawn again, never ageing. The poet is standing at one sunrise and seeing, through it, all the sunrises there have ever been.
Something to think about
Can something be both very old and completely new?
Our cards carry original, contemporary words inspired by ancient passages. They are not translations.
The Letterbox
Little letters, occasionally.
New cards, first looks and the odd kind word. Never more than we'd want to receive ourselves.