The scent of light

The Scent of Light

Like a great starving beast

My body is quivering

Fixed

On the scent

Of

Light.

(Hafiz, The Gift)

This poem really resonated with me this morning, and I thought at first it was because it so perfectly describes the way I sometimes feel at that moment when I reach for my camera.

But as I sit with that feeling a bit, I see that it also describes the way I felt in my classes this past weekend. As a result of the various exercises we were doing, the techniques I was learning and the coaching I received, I had this sense that I was "really on to something," that I was getting close to some important truths about myself -- which, interestingly enough, seem to have to do with my blind spots. I felt that some parts of me that have lived in the dark for a long time, unacknowledged, were finally coming to light.

It's astonishing, still, to me; that we can be so crippled as adults by the messages we received as children. How can it be, when we work so hard to shed light on all those shadowy places in our souls, that there are still more truths -- and untruths -- hiding in the corners? Odder still that they loom so scarily in the dark, and then, if we can coax them into the light, it turns out that it was only their shadows that were large and that they themselves are small frightened animals, desperately longing for a gentle hand and a taste of light...