In Ojibway it means “first light.” It refers to that moment when the edge of the visible sky becomes tinted a hard electric blue. A blue that has never been adequately represented in art or even in words, but one that anyone who has been awake at the birth of a day remembers forever. It’s a blue that sears the purple darkness, burns it off and claims the sky as its own. It’s a trumpet-call blue, a fanfare for the arrival of Grandfather Sun. I woke in time to see it and as I stood there shivering I felt a strange calm come over me. I didn’t move. I merely stood there, locked in place, watching the coming of the light. I realized that there are colours that go far beyond the spectrum of light. Tones and tints and hues that come alive in the sky for fractions of seconds before stretching themselves thinly, elastically into another subtle, spectacular display. I saw the richest palette and as the sun began to have its way with the sky I gave thanks for the clarity that allowed me to see it.
