light

                    Sudden Light
         I HAVE been here before,
         But when or how I cannot tell:
          I know the grass beyond the door,
          The sweet keen smell,
          The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
          You have been mine before,—
           How long ago I may not know:
           But just when at that swallow's soar
           Your neck turned so,
           Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore.
           Has this been thus before?
           And shall not thus time's eddying flight
           Still with our lives our love restore
           In death's despite,
           And day and night yield one delight once more?
                               Dante Gabriel Rossetti












there is something about light. especially as darkness comes. there is something about the contrast.
the other day i was looking at the shadows of trees on a dirt road.  the patterns were beautiful and moving and time-limited. i thought about how a shadow is just blocked light, a dark spot in the middle of bright- the opposite of a candle in darkness. 

i thought about night and day, and the earth and the sun. two sides of the world. nighttime is just the shadow of the the earth. one half experiences darkness, the world turns, there is light.

like life.  we have both. we need both.  darkness and light. they depend on each other to be. 

there are times when the night is too dark, and we are cold and lonely, and waiting for dawn.  but we can't forget that in that night shadow, we are able to see far far away into the sky.  we can see history in the light of ancient stars, the swirl of the galaxy, the face of the moon.  there is opportunity there, we can see things that we can't without the darkness, and when we can't take it anymore, we can turn on a light. 

other times, the light is too bright, too hot, and we get burned. and then it's good to find the shade, to rest in it's protection, to notice the patterns and watch them change, to appreciate the contrast. 

then there are those in between times- the transition times of morning and evening- sunrise, sunset. those hours are more beautiful than the brightest day and the darkest night, the change- the stillness of the coming or going of light. i think we are made for them- or they were made for us- to be reminded that our lives are not just black and white- not just dark and light.  or that holding both are necessary- times of shadow and times of light. 

because even our moments are sided. there is light and dark in them. and the living and learning lies in the acceptance, the looking at the stars, standing in the shadows, and the flicker of a flame, and the contrast itself.  we know greater joy, after having pain; deeper love after loss.

this season with zoe feels like the sunrise. moving from the dark into a place where i am beginning to see again.