we cannot know that we are illuminated by a great light

My Red Hills, Georgia Okeeffe

Ed Ruscha

Rite of Spring, Pina Bausch

Agnes Martin

Stefania Vasques

That light cannot be known directly is expressed in contemporary terms by Peter Russell. When speaking of the light of consciousness, he asserts:

Although all we ever see is light, paradoxically, we never know light directly. The light that strikes the eye is known only through the energy it releases. This energy is translated into a visual imagery in the mind, and that image seems to be composed of light—but that light is a quality of mind. We never know the light itself. 

Russell is speaking from a scientific viewpoint, but the fact that we can never know light itself is helpful in appreciating the working of boundless compassion. When the light of compassion illuminates our existence, it reveals our self-delusions. Hiroyuki Itsuki ... describes this as follows: 

We cannot know that we are illuminated by a great light simply by looking up into the sky. But if we lower our heads and look down at our feet we can clearly see the long, dark shadow that stretches out from us. We know that the darker and blacker that shadow is, the brighter the light that shines upon us.

Taitetsu Unno, Shin Buddhism: Bits of Rubble Turn into Gold.

Found via Evencleveland

saturday poem

In the morning when the moon is at its rest,
you will find me, at the time I love the best
watching rainbows play on sunlight;
pools of water ice cream cold light, in the morning.
yeah yeah yeah
its the morning of my life.

In the daytime I will meet you as before.
You will find me waiting by the ocean floor,
building castles in the shifting sands
in a world that nobody understands,
In a morning.
it's the morning of my life
'Tis the morning of my life

In the morning of my life
the minutes take so long to drift away
Please be patient with your life
It's only morning and you're still to live your day

In the ev'ning I will fly you to the moon
To the top right hand corner of
the ceiling in my room
Where we'll* stay till the sun shines
Another day lay on clothes lines
I'll be yawning
It is the morning of my life
This is the morning of my life

In The Morning - Nina Simone

'...Because of the limitations of our eyes, we have a prejudice, a bias, toward that tiny rainbow band we call the spectrum of visible light.'

-- Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Fabrizio Corneli

Light sculptures by Fabrizio Corneli

found here

Caught

(from here)

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?  

--Friedrich Nietzsche


(found here)

-- Robert Hunter (by Lee Crutchley)

(Found here)

Image found here

Mark Borthwick

images by Lina Scheynius via eternal-optimist

Prism

Truth.  One thing can be refracted and seen in so many different ways by different people.
Prisms, found here via here.

Found here

ring the bells that still can ring

forget your perfect offering

there is a crack in everything

that’s how the light gets in

--leanord cohen “anthem”