The Experience of Light

Sunrise Photograph by Mary Kay Roth

In Emily Dickinson’s poem “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” she artfully expresses the way winter light transforms the snow-filled world: “When it comes, the Landscape listens—Shadows —hold their breath.”

Experience of Light
Writers have chosen to write about the variants of light for a long time. For many, it’s not so much the color, but the experience of light. Poet Jane Richardson wrote “…light loves searching out/what is hidden/what is lost/what is forgotten…” Consider Shakespeare’s famous lines, “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?”  Washington Irving in Old Christmas said, “Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven… .”  Or lines from “Meditation in Sunlight,” May Sarton wrote “The sky looks down and meets the mountain range where time is light not shadow.”

A Light Show
To experience winter light, as Thoreau suggested, one must walk. All year long, Thoreau loved walking, strolling long distances by himself, often fifteen to twenty miles a day. In “A Winter Walk,” he wrote “At length we awake to the still reality of a winter morning. The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the windowsill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light.”

On a night in mid-November, I went to a city park finding my way across a grassy field to see the spectacular Northern lights, the aurora borealis. The sky was ablaze with an amazing luminescence of shimmering bands of fiery red and passion pink tinged with purple. Watching the spectacular display of colorful celestial dancers spread across the dome of the dark sky, I was again—for a split second— a ten-year old girl looking out the back window of our ’55 two-toned green Chevy. In wonder I leaned in and whispered what’s that. Dad said a sky carnival.

Golden Light
Have you noticed how phenomenal sunrise and sunset lights are this winter? Sunlight “travels an astounding expanse to reach us” said poet Jan Richardson, “arriv{ing} in a shape you did not foresee.” In the winter, while the long shape of the sun’s arc undertakes an arduous journey across the atmosphere blue and green hues are scattered away from our line of sight. Red, orange and yellow wavelengths remain to paint the sky with golden-red tones. When we experience this magic hour whether we’re looking from our deck or walking prairie something special happens to us…our hearts hold still.

Another golden sunrise happened many years ago during an early morning in late March, 1975. The whistle of a faraway train heard, my heart was full as I threaded my way down the long hallway toward the beam, a lighthouse in the ocean of darkness. A children’s lamp with cutouts of giraffes and lions and elephants spin in the semi-darkness throwing long snouts and big heads on a pink wall. Outside, everything was wearing a brilliant coat of white, the trees, barns and houses in the distance, all bathed by the experience of a magical light. Inside, another experience of a holy golden ray, not to be repeated, an ineffable baby girl.  – Becky Breed

Writing/Creativity Exercise: 

Every morning greet the light. Thank the sphere of beaming gold for all it brings to you. Light a candle of gratitude. Read “Blessing for the Light” by David Whyte.  Light can bring love, healing and wonder–possibility. What does the experience of light open for you? Consider writing from one of these writing prompts:

1. Perhaps it’s the special light at the end of the day, twilight, that holds your attention. A face of someone you love. Part of his face in twilight, the rest in shadow. Part winter solstice, part summer solstice. Write what comes up for you.
2. Maybe a time when sunlight brought healing…Soft sunlight drifted through the sheer curtain caressing her face. She woke up. Her lips chapped from the fever she asked for orange juice…
3. It was the early time of my life when I backpacked the mountains of Colorado. Spent nights under a pup tent. The first morning I woke up early…The brilliant sunrise was enclosed in a golden honeycomb…

What opens for you?

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