“There’s things half in shadow. And half way in light…” ~  Mary Poppins
Without shadows, light wouldn’t mean as much as it does. The same can be said for darkness. For better or worse, I’ve never shied away from either. At this time of the year, however, I like to emerge from the blackness of winter and focus on the light. We began the day with a poem by Mary Oliver, and it’s just as lovely to end it in the same manner:
THE SUN
By Mary Oliver
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone –
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance –
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love –
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a world billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed –
or have you too
turned from this world-
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
