The Bond of the Band
In the morning in the room where I write I always open all the blinds to my left, liking the cascade of natural light that flows in as the sun rises over the slope of the tree outside and the hill above it. At this time of the year the sun in its arc shines for about twenty minutes directly into the room making everything in front of the window very bright while the rest of the room is held in shadow. This only goes on for such a short time since the space between the tree across the drive and the edge of the roof is quite narrow. And, since the sun moves daily in relationship to this space, the daily effects are different daily too.
This morning over coffee as I was reading this or that page of hope or despair spun out by the Net, I noticed that a gleaming gold light was flitting about the shadowed part of the room in front of my desk. It was a bright lively spirit, almost a Tinkerbell, moving and jumping around the walls or
sometimes just hovering in a single spot. For a moment it both fascinated and puzzled me. Where did it come from? Why was it moving in these ways and at this time. But that curious moment passed because a second's thought told me it was only the sun reflecting off the gold surface of the wedding band placed on my ring finger high on a hill on Catalina Island visible from my porch when the weather and atmosphere collaborate for clarity. A mundane explanation for a magical moment.
But then again perhaps not so mundane if you take it whole and think about the meaning beneath the mundane, which is what -- in idle moments -- we humans tend to do. I like to think that that moment gave me a glimpse into the bond we share, how it catches the light from our home star that falls on all of us, on you and me alike in our shared but different worlds, reflecting that light in a gold beam cast into the shadows of our single worlds; how it accents and illuminates those shadows making them less dark, somehow only a sideshow which the shining small light defines. A golden light that reaches farther than we know.
In the room where I write I have a globe high above me on a shelf. It is not a glove of the Earth, but one of the Moon. Once I saw that the gold light from the ring could be pointed everywhere in the shadows by a small movement of my hand, I began to play with it a bit. I found that, if I adjusted my hand just so, the golden beam of light could, if I wished, illuminate anything, even a crater lost on the dark side of the moon.
But it was only a wish. Looking again I noted that whenever one illuminates a dark place it just makes the shadows around it that much darker still. It was time to get up and go out into the light.
Posted by Vanderleun at November 9, 2005 5:56 PM | TrackBackReading yr "Gold Light" essay gives me reason for Thanksgiving. I've devoted 40 years, from 18 to 59 (so far) reflecting the Light brought by the Glory of God (Baha'u'llah) into some pretty D A R K places, and yup! It illuminates something, but in that moment also shows the shadows as that much darker!
Write on!
Posted by: Karridine at November 23, 2005 5:21 PM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.