Light and Shadows

"Turn your face to the sun, and the shadows fall behind you." Maori Proverb

I love shadows! Early in the morning as I walk through the gardens, the most simplest of things turn extraordinary. Commonplace forms can be viewed with a new perspective. The imagination is turned loose to wander, creating all sorts of fanciful ideas that bounce around in the brain. I have never needed much to make my imagination kick into high gear, but shadows have fascinated me since I was a child. I remember making "shadow puppets" on the wall with any given light, a playtime activity not known to many children of today. Simple pleasures that allow us to while away the hours!

Silhouettes also fascinate me. Not the type seen framed hanging on the wall but rather those in nature. A bug's shape seen through a leaf or a leaf behind the window curtain..these silhouettes. The ones that you just happen along during the course of the day. Happy little occurrences that make the day brighter just because they are there.

Of shadows and silhouettes, I have also noticed there is a vast difference in those cast by the morning sun and those in the evening. As I see it, morning shadows seem full of hope, beckoning the new day with excitement and wonder. It is as though these are saying to come out to play, to greet the day, to breathe in this wonder. Those seen in the evening, speak of the coming night, a calming time. The time to sit idle and reflect on what has been, what was or what should have been accomplished.

In literature most shadows are representative of darkness, obscurity and angst. I have a tendency to think just the opposite. Somewhere there is the light that is needed to make these shadows. When you start looking in that direction, things do not seem so bleak. Take time to see shadows and you will always see brightness, a light showing the way. Sometimes it takes the dark to notice the Light.