-I love
everything that dazzles me and then accentuates the darkness within me-
Rene Char
Squinting in the
sun, I scan the terrain. The nature of
idleness; I am drawn like a moth into the calm. Venturing into the yellowing
foliage of the vineyard, lured by autumn’s call, I search for evidence of a
gathering – yet today it is not the laughing curve of blue sky sprinkled with freewheeling flickers of songbirds or the taunting
array of leaf colors that catches my attention. Instead I am drawn to the dark,
creeping fingers of shadow blemishing the ground.
The month of
October in the northern hemisphere highlights the progressive tilt of the earth's axis, which at the
equinox starts out being inclined neither away from nor towards the sun, then continues its gradual
lengthening of nights and shortening of days until reaching the longest night
of the winter solstice. What does the eye notice during the day at this time of departing light? On the white birch black leaves glitter - while a great snaking of dark weaves its way through the prized light of day, lengthening as the sun slides lower in the sky and gets caught behind a row of tall evergreens and the peaked roof of a red-planked barn. Entire landforms rearrange themselves to the eye, highlighted by the shifting shapes of their shadow forms.
I cross the paved street, bathed in the bright aura
of afternoon sunshine that heats the surrounding air. Climbing the short, steep ledge of dry grass and stone that separates cemetary from road, I stand at the edge of a landscape warm against my skin. Today the silence of this private resting place
for the departed is serenaded by the soft murmur of leafy oak. Mirrored in the
free-form, iridescent movements of a lone butterfly, an invisible transit
textured with light, fleet breezes carries dry leaf and pollen grain on the
wing.
Traveling from one gravestone to the next in tight circles, I pay close attention to the shadows cast by each monument. Discarded cloaks of human spirit stitched to the base, the shadows create a shape-shifting mosaic of dark that blankets the sun-bleached ground. This contrast of light and form, fine and intricate as thought, is a reminder of the eventual end to the long journey which we are all called upon to make. We travel as if blindfolded, spun around and pointed toward a destination that’s nothing more than an impulse weaving through time; a wild rose unfolding petal after petal ever wider until encompassing the entire universe in the beautiful expression of a single human life.
Traveling from one gravestone to the next in tight circles, I pay close attention to the shadows cast by each monument. Discarded cloaks of human spirit stitched to the base, the shadows create a shape-shifting mosaic of dark that blankets the sun-bleached ground. This contrast of light and form, fine and intricate as thought, is a reminder of the eventual end to the long journey which we are all called upon to make. We travel as if blindfolded, spun around and pointed toward a destination that’s nothing more than an impulse weaving through time; a wild rose unfolding petal after petal ever wider until encompassing the entire universe in the beautiful expression of a single human life.
