First light is a thin place. Before the day hardens into its ordinary shape, the water in the bowl still remembers the dark it came out of — and so does the eye that has only just left its dreaming.
This bath is not for washing the body but for washing the sight, for lifting the grey film that ordinary waking lays across the inner eye. It reaches toward the moment before the world names itself, when omens are still legible and the coming day has not yet decided to hide. To bathe now is to greet the future while it is still soft.
The Working
- Before the sun clears the horizon, warm a bowl of water and steep a handful of eyebright and mugwort until the water goes gold and bitter-green.
- Strain the brew, then stir in three drops of clary oil, turning the water always toward the place the sun will rise.
- Wet your fingers and anoint your closed eyelids, your brow, and the hollow at the base of your skull, where sight is said to sleep.
- Speak the incantation to the water, then pour it slowly over the crown of your head and let it run down without wiping it away.
- Ring a bell once, close beside your ear, and keep your eyes shut until the sound has entirely died.
- Open your eyes to the first true light and do not speak; the first thing you see clearly is the day’s own answer to what you carry.
- Let the air dry you, keeping the anointing on your skin until the sun stands full up.
The Incantation
Eyebright, open what waking has sealed,
Wash from my seeing the world’s grey shield.
Mugwort, remember the road of the dream,
Carry it up through the morning’s first gleam.
Water that rose from the underdark deep,
Rinse the long film of the ordinary sleep.
Let the day meet me with nothing between —
Thin be the veil, and clear be the seen.
For the length of that morning your eye will hold its dawn-clearness; spend the sight gently, for the veil settles again by noon.