Tag: light

The Light & The Shadow

.Reading time 3 minutes.

~a short meditation on healing~

Each person sheds her own light on the same landscape, allowing us to experience shifting perspectives as the cycles of day and night circle one another. Who among us would stop day at high noon, saying truth is only revealed through full exposure to sunlight, at the expense of never again feeling the gold of sunrise or peering into purple shadows at dusk? Indeed, the nature of a rock is not just in its exact proportions, mineral content, etc., but also in its relationship to sun and moon light, hot and cold, wind and rain. In its fullest capacity, truth is known in the continuous spectrum of light and dark, changing continually through the seasons and expanses of vast time. 
~excerpt from my master's thesis chapter discussing research methodology

There is a tendency in western culture and/or in the English language, to equate light with truth and revelation, and shadow with obscurity and dishonesty. To “shed light on” means to reveal something previously hidden or unknown; to “descend into darkness” communicates an anguished journey into mental/emotional confusion or ignorance. In this dualistic and dichotomous worldview, truth is reduced into a series of either/ors incompatible with a holistic realization of experience. In the fanaticism of either/ors, of light versus shadow, we may experience blinding whiteouts and loss of vision in violent flashes of light, or, we may fall into states of alienation and estrangement and depression in the pitch dark of blackouts. 

When we suffer, we are counseled to seek the light, to lift ourselves out of gloom and doom, to step into the light, to come out of the shadows… What if, on the other hand, we were encouraged to embrace both the light and the shadow, to befriend our monsters, to live with our angels and our demons—both? Perhaps we would then see that there is a special glow in the between spaces that connect rather than separate… In these spaces shared and cohabited by the light and the shadow. We would see that it is a dance—a beautiful and an intimate partner dance. A warm embrace. A love, unconditional and eternal. 

京のコーヒー

.Reading time 2 minutes.
Kyoto Coffee                                                                            

flowers startle white
in the black night
caffeine-steeped 
 and camouflaged in
e   l e  g a n c  e    
 i awaken 
all  enchanted
the wild blossoms are singing 
light          
into         new   day .

I wrote the original version of this poem about three years ago, after enjoying coffee in an elegant cup at a café in Kyoto. After a long talk with a good friend, the night was late and I cycled back to my small, secluded-away in a quiet and dimly-lit neighborhood near ancient temple grounds in Higashiyama, house. Along the way, I was startled to encounter these white flowers glowing out of the darkness—similar to the white flower on my black coffee cup just a short while earlier. What magic potion had I just consumed, I pondered, in the guise of an elegant Kyoto cup of coffee? Little did I know then, just how truly magical and extraordinary our worlds can be. And I was entirely guileless as to the adventure I’d unknowingly embarked upon. But here I am now, three years later, still traversing these caffeine-steeped nights of enchantment. And what has emerged? Worlds of poetry, beauty, magic, and a precious love—like no other.

So what it the moral of the story?
Surrender to the irrational demands of your heart and of beauty, to this wild world far too vast to be contained within the narrow confines of our minds. And something more magical than you could have ever dreamed of will welcome you, on the other side of night.

Flowers For Humanity

.Reading time 3 minutes.

In this one weave of life we are all connected. Ultimately, there is no real separation and there is no real other. And in actuality, there is no real enemy to fight. It is the conceptualization of enemies, which allows for hostilities and fighting. This is the very simple reason wartime propaganda aggressively demonizes the “other”, the so-called “enemy”. For without an enemy, whom are we to fight? But in the very creation of “enemies” we ourselves become an enemy—our enemy’s enemy—and the realization of peace vanishes instantly. In the very moment we conceive an other as an enemy, we ourselves are already defeated; our own peace shattered instantly. 

Indeed, everything is energy. The life-sustaining light of the sun is energy; the life-annihilating force of nuclear weaponry is energy. We cannot shield life from the destruction of warfare with more violence; only love can do that. The energy of rage and indignation—whether expressed as anti-Putin or anti-NATO sentiment, whether experienced by perpetrator or by victim of violence—is essentially the same energy. Liberation from violence does not come through violence itself; only love can liberate. 

Ultimately, peace is an alignment with love; whereas war is a state of misalignment—imbalance and disharmony. In the pursuit of peace, the important question to ask is not: How do we defeat the enemy? But rather: How do we align with love? 

Can we not see that the light of the sun shines everywhere, on everyone, equally and indiscriminately? And that the flowers blossom simply because it is their very nature to do so? Love is our very nature, and by design, love does not discriminate. 

So whoever you are, wherever it is that you come from, whatever your walk of life…

in these times of fear 
trauma and hate 
of senseless violence 
hold on 
to your light 
your love 
and your beauty 
offer to the altar of life 
the sacred flower 
of your heart

This post will be in place of my usual weekly post on Fridays, 12:00 a.m. UTC. I expect to return to my usual schedule next week on March 11. Thank you so much for reading, and may love and light be with you always.
~michiru adrienne

philocalist

.Reading time 2 minutes.

philocalist: a person who loves beauty; one who sees and appreciates beauty in all things.

What is beauty? Like love, beauty is some kind of nameable uncontainable, some kind of innate and immediate and intrinsic nature of our humanness. And like love, beauty eludes definition the way sunlight escapes boxes and the shadows. We cannot live without the light. We cannot live without love and we cannot live without beauty.

Beauty might be a rose, or a stranger who comes to our rescue. It could be that smooth shiny surface of wooden floor boards worn step after step after step after step—a million times over. Or sparkles dancing on water. Dew in the morning light. A friendly smile. Honey. And sweetness.

In one way or the other, beauty is everything that is good. Like a natural point of rest, beauty is the default setting for our most essential selves. The Navajo word for it is Hózhó. Harmony balance reciprocity peace.

So in your moments of darkness, of hurt or of despair, look into the mirror and remember that not only are you beautiful—but that you are beauty itself… beauty reflecting beauty. Say not “I am beautiful”, but declare “I Am Beauty”. And everything else in this tumultuous life shall fall into place—step after step after step after step—you shall Walk in Beauty. Hózhó.

philocalist: a person who knows themself as beauty; one who walks in beauty.

into the light

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
t um blin g 
at the edge of the world 
i fall 
down 
tumbling with the awkward
grace 
of a dancer 
unhinged 
unfettered 
unbridled  
and entirely 
undone 
free 
free now 
and cascading freely
down and
over the edge and at last 
tumbling 
tumbling down 
t um blin g  
down 
and 
and into 
the  l  i   g    h      t

Gold

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
this love is gold light
in wild flowers and bold skies
beauty everywhere

(haiku 5-7-5)

Source

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Who can tell me, what is the source of love? 
Not the whos nor whats which we love, not our dreams nor passions. But like rain from the clouds, rivers from the high mountains, song from morning birds, from where does love come?

Like this body made up of trillions of cells, and cells made up of biomolecules, and biomolecules made up of… ah, um, let’s just skip right to the part where matter essentially breaks down into nothingness… where this body is nothing but empty space. 
And what of love? What are its elemental parts and particles? Like the body falling into a microverse of emptiness, into what space does love fall, eventually? Like trying to locate physical origins of consciousness itself, trying to locate the same for love may very well be futile—an endeavor best left to the poets among us. 
(It is apparent, yes, that science is not my forte!) But surely, there are no grand laws of physics, quantum physics, or other physics for that matter, which can tell us how love arises into our hearts and minds, and bursts so brightly, into our souls. 

So let the poet in me humbly suggest a theory. 
Love, like light, comes from the sun. Yes, that’s right. All those millions and gazillions of stars out there? They are actually love-generating furnaces! 
It makes sense does it not? Physical matter breaks down into emptiness, so we are actually bodies of empty space being filled with light. Or is light only a result of a collision of particles and waves between the sun and our vastly empty bodies? I think that light too, like love, cannot truly be contained in the mind. 
These uncontainables, and these apparent immaterials… are like wind which can only be seen in the swirl of desert sand. Or water, in the long and slow curves of canyon walls. Sound, in the reverberation of strings. 
And love, seen in the light of a smile or felt in a remembered birthday, arises in the betweenness of things. In relationship. A mother and child. A butterfly and an irresistible flower. Shimmering rainbows of water and light in the sky. A spider and her web. Love is light. Like how we come to see the sun—in the collision of particles and waves. A reverberation felt in the deep space of the heart. 

In the photo above, do you not see the heart shining out from the sun? I offer you this, my empirical evidence that the source of love is indeed, the sun.
So the next time you gaze up into the starry night sky, perhaps you will feel the overwhelming presence of love shining everywhere there… And your heart, your one precious heart, flooded with light.

no place to hide

.Reading time 2 minutes.
LOVE  is light    which        like the  SUN            has no         place                                        to       hide.

Once upon a very, very long time ago, the world was suddenly thrown into utter darkness and chaos. The notorious Susanoo, god of storms and the younger brother of the sun goddess Amaterasu-Omikami, wrecked havoc in the goddess’s rice fields and committed other acts of flagrant violence which so angered Amaterasu-Omikami that she hid herself inside a cave and barricaded the entrance with a boulder too heavy for anyone to move. She would not respond to any appeals to come out of the cave. 

Faced with this dire situation, all eight million deities of Japan convened in front of the cave and devised a plan to convince Amaterasu-Omikami to come out of hiding. A large mirror was placed in a tree just outside the cave’s entrance and another goddess, Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto, proceeded to dance atop an overturned bucket. Dancing with abandon and stamping upon the bucket,  Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto danced and danced and danced and then tore off her clothes all at once, causing the other deities to laugh uproariously. 

Hearing all the commotion from inside the cave, Amaterasu-Omikami could not contain her curiosity. What on earth could all the deities be laughing about in her absence? And so she opened the cave a tiny bit to peek out and saw her own brilliant reflection shining back at her in the mirror! Bedazzled just long enough, the strong god who had been patiently waiting there at the cave’s entrance then pushed the great boulder aside and pulled Amaterasu-Omikami out from the cave. A shimenawa, sacred rope, was placed in front of the cave, preventing the goddess from going back inside. 

And at last, light was restored to the world.

no place to hide

Do not hide your love, little one. 
Like the sun, be bedazzled by the brilliance 
of your own light, 
of your beauty,
and your love. 
Go ahead now, step out, 
boldly and brightly 
into every sky, Shining.
Dancing,
all naked, raw, and real.
For not a single day goes by, 
that does not need your light and
your love,
that does not need
you.

Love & Light

.Reading time 1 minute.

Be like the flower, turn your face to the sun.

Kahlil gibran

We have sat for millennia, it seems, staring at walls into candle flames into the darkness and into the depths of our souls, in silence and solitude—seeking answers to resolve all of humanity’s imperfections, suffering, and ignorance… and for a way out of the dark. 
Perhaps moths are wiser, irresistibly drawn to the light, without second thought.

We have repented, confessed our sins, flagellated bare backs of ourselves and others, prostrated in front of superiors, and walked millions of miles on broken feet and bleeding knees. We have beaten, stoned, shot, mutilated and murdered—in the name of some greater light. 
Perhaps the flowers know better, naturally unfurling to the sun, without thought.

Perhaps life need not be so burdened, after all. 

Maybe we are in essence, simply beings of light and of love. We will realize our true nature, like the flowers, when we turn to the light; when like moths, our hearts burn with love, without thought. Maybe freedom is a bird in flight—on the wings of love and light. And divinity itself shines everywhere and in everything, omniscient and omnipresent. 

Perhaps, after all, we are simply divine beings of love and light. 

Go ahead—smell the roses and dance in the rain. Do it now—without thought, and for no reason. Shine.

hope

.Reading time 1 minute.
purified, clear light
everywhere in darkness shines
music for the deaf
vision for eyes wanting sight
and for my heart, the road home
(waka poem: 5-7-5-7-7)

What is hope, other than a beacon of clear light in the darkness? Wind behind sails crossing unknown seas. The moon in a sky of desolation. And, a heartbeat in the chamber of silence and stillness.

When we struggle, when we fall and despair, are utterly broken and feel lost, hope is the very thing that sees us through. 

How does hope come to you—in your darkness? What is your moon, and from where do the winds blow? What sound causes your heart to beat?

Even if we cannot see it, hope is that eternally rising sun on the eastern horizon—bringing with it, daylight into the night. Whether we like it or not, are ready or not, whether we open our eyes—or not… hope rises, again and again. For sometimes there is a certain comfort in the blanket of darkness, in being unseen and seeing not. We would rather evade, than wake up to our own hearts’ desires and truth. 

But hope, in its benevolence and persistence, will inevitably pierce that shell of illusive security and cast all shadows into the light. So go ahead already—shine. It is your birthright, and your destiny.