Wednesday, May 12, 2010

I exist!


Why am I so preoccupied with shadows these days? I read Wendell Berry of course, about how to let what I am afraid of just come.

Also I walk the May mornings, drenched in light. It confirms what I know already: the more sun, the stronger the shadows.

I was thinking today, how shadows really give evidence to your physical being. Wherever I go, I see myself reflected. There’s no denying it. I exist!

There has been times when I thought I was lighter than feathers. That if I jumped from a high place there would be no thump. No blood. No crying. Humans are strange that way. It is possible to count your two arms, your ten toes and ten fingers, and still doubt you are alive within a body.

I imagine it has to do with owning your own will.
But that is a different story.

So I have been standing in a window, wondering. It sounds like a sad story. It is. And it isn’t. For this is the strangely obvious but sometimes forgotten fact: shadows are proofs of the sun’s existence.

So shadow talk is not just about accepting the dark. It is as much about the opposite.

But to let the shadows come, and to focus on them, are two separate things. As similar, and as opposite as the North and the South Poles.

In the next posting I’ll conduct a small mental experiment to demonstrate the difference........

Photo © Grete S. Kempton

5 comments:

  1. I love shadows, too. I'm enjoying your Wendell Berry ruminations. It makes me want to grab his latest book and go sit in the shadow of a large tree in my backyard and read. Blessings!

    "Where there is much light, the shadow is deep.” ~Goethe

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  2. Marion -

    I love the rumination - and the conversation with Wendell Berry. He teaches me not to run for the next thing, but to sit still. And listen.

    To sit in the shadows of a large tree with his poems seems the best place!

    And thanks for the Goethe quote. I saw his words written inside my moving shadow when out walking this morning.....

    Grete

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  3. Grete, if you liked my TP comment at Erin's place, then you might enjoy reading a post I did last year called "Tokin' With the Lord". It's a true story:

    http://dragonflyspoetryandprolixity.blogspot.com/2009/07/tokin-with-lord.html

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  4. Grete, you dissect things like no other. I am here to learn - from you - beside you.

    xo
    erin

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  5. Marion -

    Tokin' with the Lord for sure! I am utterly aamaazed at your bravery - and your kindness - letting in a stranger as if he was a long lost cousin or neighbor or friend or dog or....... or at least someone you faintly knew...... So next time I run away from the asylum, at least I know where to go....... :-))

    Erin -

    Hand me the scalpel, please....... :-)

    Grete

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