Aurora has shortened her working day lately, but we can forgive her, for she is now painting some of her most spectacular sunrises and sunsets of the year.
The ancient poets liked to describe Aurora as the blushing goddess of the dawn, "as when her cheek begins to redden through the gloom, it is her growing brilliance that soon blinds the stars." Mythologically speaking, it's this same Aurora who opens and shuts the celestial gates and wakens her brother Helios. He, with his wild team lunging at their bits, is eager to escape the darkness of the night so he can celebrate his day in the chariot of gold racing across the heavenly fields of blue.
And when the sun's daily chore is at its end, Aurora again draws up her flaming blankets of purples and gold, while beating the remaining flakes of fire into twilight before closing Heaven's gate and permitting the herds - flocks of stars - to resume their pasturing in the fields of night.
