Before the sun clears the hedgerow there is an hour the color of pewter, when the world has not yet decided what kind of day it will be. In that hour a small flame can tip the scales.
This candle is lit to gild the day at its beginning, coaxing fortune to arrange itself in your favor before the ordinary rush begins. Dawn is the threshold hour, neither night nor morning, and what you ask there the day tends to grant. A little salt guards the luck; a little oil feeds it.
The Working
- Rise before first light and set a plain candle — beeswax if you have it — on a dish you have wiped clean.
- Draw a fingertip of oil up the candle from base to wick, as if lifting the day toward its own light.
- Scatter a thin ring of salt around the base to keep the good you gather from leaking away.
- As the sky greys, strike the flame and hold your palms toward it until they warm.
- Speak the incantation into the small light, once slow and once slower.
- Let the candle burn while you take your first cup of the day, then pinch it out and carry the stub in your pocket until dusk.
The Incantation
Grey hour, gold hour, hinge of the day,
turn on your quiet and open my way.
Salt at the root and oil to the crown,
let no good fortune I gather run down.
First light, fair light, lean to my side,
gild every hour from now until night.
As the flame stands, so let the day stand —
bright at my back and luck in my hand.
When the candle is out, the day is already leaning toward you. Carry the warm stub as a coin of light until the dark comes to claim it back.