Let There Be Light

We have just passed the Winter Solstice and already the days are beginning to lengthen.  Not noticeably.  In the last five days the days have been lengthening by seconds.  On December 21, the day of the solstice we had eight hours, ten minutes and 59 seconds of daylight.  Now, five days later we have more than one whole whopping minute of daylight time, eight hours twelve minutes and sixteen seconds. And very slowly the increase accelerates until in June we will be enjoying sixteen hours of daylight, warm weather (if we're lucky), and a plethora of flowers, leaves and green grass and singing birds and surging hormones.  What would we be without light?  Where would we be?  The earth would perish very quickly if the sun went out.  Is it any wonder that the sun was worshipped as a god by ancient peoples all over the globe?  Without the light and warmth of the sun all life would be soon gone.  Not only would we be unable to see the beauty around us, we would soon be extinguished with it.  It is also a wonder that the quality and strength sunlight, depends on where we happen to be in the world and at which stage of the earth's revolution around the sun, since it is the tilt of the earth's axis that creates winter in one hemisphere and summer in the other.

     We all learned in school about photosynthesis, the process of sunlight being harnessed by the chemical chlorophyll which makes the leaves and stems green to produce nourishment with help from the minerals of the earth being drawn up into the plant or tree with the water.  Such a simple but profoundly mysterious process which is the basis of life or most life as we know it, since mushrooms, fungi, and creatures that occupy the darkest depths of the ocean do rather well without sunlight.  But they do not foster the flourishing of life, and without the trees, grass, fruit and seed of the upper world we might subsist for a while on mushrooms but the most vital aspects of our lives would be rendered to a barely vegetative existence and eventually we would either morph into hideous blind reptiles or, more likely, we would vanish from the earth because of the inevitable cold.  Because of light, the light from the sun, we enjoy warmth, food and vision.  Sunlight also creates in the skin vitamin D, which is essential for good health.

     Without light there is no colour because light is composed of colours as colours are components of light.  The process by which light through its varying wavelengths and intensities becomes distinct colours and shades I think will always be essentially mysterious.  Scientists can analyze light and understand what it does.  I am not convinced that they will ever define exactly what it is besides energy. It is common knowledge that matter is highly organized energy.  When the atomic structure of any material, notably a radioactive element is broken down, tremendous and destructive energy is released.  I do not have the knowledge or the background in physics to be able to adequately explain or understand just how the so-called God particle can hold together the nucleus and electrons of an atom, but I am satisfied with believing that this energy proceeds from God and in a way is God.

     Light to me is the most definitive visible evidence of God.  It is always present, always evident, but it cannot be defined except that it is and that it informs and sustains and maintains the very structure of the universe as our bodies, our minds and the earth that we are part of.  Light is a visible miracle that is for atheists and none-theists the elephant in the living room.

     Sometimes as a walking meditation I imagine every single atom that is me and everything surrounding me and the energy which is the God of Love upholding, inhabiting and sustaining these most minute particles and nanoparticles of atoms and components of atoms, and this always fills me with joy and awe.  Be it light energy or fire energy or sound energy or other energy this is our most infallible sign, besides joy and love, of the divine presence.

     The Aztec and the Maya and other ancient peoples performed ritual human sacrifices on the winter solstice so the sun would stop dying and return with its life-giving light, so important is light.  They did not know that by murdering people to appease their gods they were but plunging themselves into darkness.  It is unfortunate that our eyes can be open to the glory of light, but our behaviour can still plunge our souls into darkness.