Tag: light

taking the light within

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The Summer Solstice

Each morning we awaken to the light and the invitation to a new day in the world of time; each night we surrender to the dark to be taken to play in the world of dreams where time is no more. At birth we were awakened and emerged to become visible in the world. At death we will surrender again to the dark to become invisible.

Awakening and surrender: they  frame each day and each life; between them the journey where anything can happen, the beauty and the frailty.

John O’Donohue.

photo of the Grianán of Aileach in County Donegal by Mark McGaughey on Wikipedia

Some light

Karl Duffy2 Comments

In the Christian Calendar today is the feast of Candlemas. While not as old as the Celtic feast of yesterday, it does date from the 4th Century in Jerusalem, and reflects the same need to mark this moment, halfway between the winter and the spring solstices. It brought light into the darkness – in the Celtic tradition by the lighting of fires, in the Christian by a procession of candles and the blessing of candles for use in the home.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled —
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing —
that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

Mary Oliver, The Ponds (extract)