Morning Light: Displaying the Lantern of the Soul

They say that weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that joy arrived after all those tears, but the morning light was just lovely, and as always, it was healing balm for the sad and weary soul.

Thank you to everyone who read yesterday's story about three pages from the Book of Lost Things, focusing especially on the little black kitty that we loved and lost. Thank you to those who commented and said kind things that made me feel just a tiny bit better.

Thanks to those who didn't say anything, but sent beams of goodwill our way. There are those who couldn't muster the courage to read a sad tale: I understand. That's OK too.

I am a lover of cats; it is perhaps the first true thing I ever knew about myself. To try to rescue one and lose it was hard. I have cried more in the past two days than I thought possible. But I am not embarrassed by the tears I shed for others. It is part of the human condition, loving and losing.

And the heart is an extraordinarily strong organ. You can break it a thousand times and it only grows . . . somehow . . . bigger and stronger. No, the tears of loss won't break you. They won't end you. You are much stronger than that. The cracks that feel like brokenness are how the light gets in to feed your soul.

There was a time last summer when I was in despair over some things that were going on in my personal world, and some things going on in the greater world at large. At that time, I was fortunate to stumble across a posting by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, called We Were Made for These Times.

It gave me courage and hope and strength to read it, and in the days that followed, I read it over and over again, obsessively. There was a part of it that especially touched me deeply that I will quote here, in hopes that it may give another who needs it on this day strength and courage, as it did me:

"One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity."

Be brave. Intervene. Show mercy. Let your soul send out sparks! So there are some words of encouragement for the day. :-) Now, I'll take a break from philosophy, and the sad stories, and get back to the pictures!

I never grow tired of photographing the tree rows at the Arboretum, and the morning shadows there are long and interesting. Shooting there is like being a mathematician, trying to line up all those lines and angles, getting back to the basic geometries of photography.

There is something clean and clear and refreshing about the exercise. It soothes me, takes me outside of myself. And the sunlight . . . well, the sunlight was just extraordinary. And yes, it's starting to look a little bit like spring. :-)

The song to accompany this sunny morning that followed so many tears is a tune from the year I was born, 1964: Gerry and the Pacemakers, with Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying.