Follow the Light

I am trying to link Earth Portals

Amiga Luz. My friend, the light. I have always been led by the light. Drawn to it. I am aroused by the way it creates sharp angles on vibrant colored city walls. The way it illuminates caramel colored skin or highlights delicate peach fuzz on a face. The way it creates shadows on brick buildings of shimmering leaves, fire escapes or birds swooning.

Photography, literally, means writing with light. The light determines the photograph. It pulls the lens like a magnet towards the subject, creating haloes around ordinary objects that then become stunning and profound.

My son is also drawn to the light like a magnet. He cranes his neck to ogle the nearest lamp or, even better, overhead bulb. I think all babies do this. I’m not sure. I’ve never known a baby before.

And of course the light is meaningful as a metaphor. It is a choice. To follow the light. The way happiness is a choice. The glass-is-half-full type of choice. My grandmother’s last words to my mother before she died were “happiness is a choice.” I see that in life.

We can choose to see the light or the darkness in any given situation. Both exist. I don’t adhere to a western dualistic notion of the universe, whereby there are two overarching, opposing forces. I believe that “light” and “dark” (or yin and yang) co-exist, and I believe all shades in between the extremes exist. Moreover, I believe that on a deeper, quantum level, the whole is not the sum of its parts but that the whole exists in every part. As in, we are all one indivisible whole. One love. I understand this best as the holographic explanation of the universe. (link http://www.earthportals.com/hologram.html) .

But while it is difficult to navigate life on a subatomic level (lord knows, I’ve tried), it is relatively easy to adhere to a few, practical guiding principals. Choosing to follow the light is one of these. It is a simple choice that can be made even while harboring the delusion that you are separate from the rest of the world, special even, and that the material world is real and meaningful.

Recently my son, 3 months at the time, was smiling wildly at the light and my Colombian mother-in-law declared, “amiga luz.” This is not a precise Spanish phrase but more like made up, baby talk that nevertheless makes sense. I liked it. Later, I fought with mother in law. Over the baby. First mom stuff. At the same time, I was reserving the name for, and starting to prepare, this blog. Stewing about my MIL, I finally talked myself down from being mad at her, reminded myself how much I love her, and saw things from her point of view. In a simple way, in that moment, I choose the light. And it felt much better to do so. Amiga Luz.