As the first burst of brilliant light appeared from behind the darkened moon the crowd roared again and I dropped my gaze, feeling the warm glow on my face intensify. Emerging from the totality of the Eclipse, the sun’s powerful light illuminated the sky and we were once again returned to daylight, returned to our mundane reality and yet changed, renewed, inspired by the natural spectacle we had just witnessed.
As we go about our daily lives, we don’t usually think about the sun that much except perhaps when we’re playing sport or spending long hours on the beach. Yet there it is every day, illuminating everything around us. In fact, when we look at anything at all, we are only seeing the light reflecting off the object, we don’t actually see the object itself. By the way the light bounces off surfaces with varying densities we are able to interpret the shapes and forms which are familiar to us. Unfamiliar things are more difficult to see only because our brains have trouble interpreting the light patterns and there are even frequencies of light which we can’t see at all.
When we see coloured lights such as in a theatre or nightclub, what we are seeing is not colour added to a light, but rather the result of certain colours being blocked by the filtering of particular frequencies of light. Using a red filter over a light, for example, will block off the entire blue spectrum, making the object appear red and vice-verse. However if you use too many filters on the same light source, you can block out all the light completely and be left in darkness. So in order to see something clearly we need to illuminate it, shine light on it and not just any kind of light, but the right kind of light.
As a Tarot Reader, I assist clients to see their situation clearly, to be honest with themselves and to release the filters and conditioning that we all collect throughout our lives. Sometimes we may view the world through angry red filters, convinced that life was designed just to irritate us. Other times we may carry happy, joyful yellow filters but be unwilling to look too hard at anything distasteful. Or perhaps we might view life through a cool blue detachment – nothing rubs off, nothing sinks in, nothing touches us…
By choosing to act from our moods, attitudes or past wounds we are filtering out certain frequencies in our reality and therefore we are only experiencing certain parts of the truth. That keeps us stuck in limitation, often repeating the same failures and hurts over and over again. In order to see the whole truth, we need the whole spectrum of light and that means shining the clear light of our awareness.
Have you noticed that sometimes you can walk around with the same old problem for days or months, looking for a solution or trying to find answers? Then suddenly it hits you out of the blue, “Aha” we cry, “that’s it!” Like a bright light has been switched on, all of a sudden we see the situation clearly and the answer is obvious. , “Oh of course,” we think, “I knew that all along, I just couldn’t see it…”
True wisdom comes from within and when it arises into our awareness, we recognise it instantly. However the answers that we are seeking are often hidden in the depths of our subconscious mind and that can be a kind of dark place where we may hesitate to go. Darkness doesn’t have to be scary though, as the darkness only exists where we are not shining the light of our awareness. You know what happens when you switch on the light – immediately the darkness is gone.
We all have the ability to see the truth clearly but the truth isn’t always convenient or comfortable. So we make excuses, start holding up red or blue filters and tell ourselves that’s just the way the world is. Fortunately that kind of avoidance doesn’t work for too long and if we are serious about our personal growth, we will start looking for where we have hidden the flashlight.
If we really want to discover the truth, to uncover all that we already know, the treasure hidden deep within our psyche, then we must use one of the greatest powers that we have. We must be willing to shine the light of our awareness and illuminate the shadows.
Photograph by Ben Cooper
