Humans across the globe have been rising to greet each day since time before memory. In ritual and rhythm, ceremony and sacrifice, we have turned our eyes to that grand and dependable star – seeking meaning, and understanding, and grace.
How often do we forget this connection? How often is it that the alarm wakes us, demands our attention and, when too much time has past lingering in near slumber, does guilt or fear propel us up and out and on our way?
We are stardust, after all: the atoms in our body stellar detritus from celestial events of eons ago. We owe it to ourselves, and this cosmic ancestry, to pay attention to the source from which we came.
In The Way to Start a Day, Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall explore this esoteric aspect of the human condition. The sparse text reads like an extended poem, each column a stanza and each page a verse. As readers, we are drawn in by the warmth of the story, and are comforted by the familiarity of the experiences depicted therein.
The book is much more, however, than a celebration of possibility and renewal: it reminds us of our collective, universal past – acknowledging that our daily practice is tied to those of our ancestors, our neighbors, and those members of our global community just beyond the arc of the planet’s curved surface. Coupled with playfully austere illustrations of global landscapes and intimate depictions of the people who live there, we are reminded of the power of this connection.
When the first rays of the morning sun wash across our face, we are warmed by the receipt of such pure radiance. Is it not amazing that through the vast expanse of space and time we find each other?
Every day is sacred. And so are you.
ISBN 0-689-71054-2
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