“Beginnings are out of our hands; they decide themselves. This is true of our breathing and our heartbeat. Beginning precedes us, creates us, and constantly takes us to new levels and places and people. There is nothing to fear in the act of beginning.”
– John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us
This week is the one year anniversary of my move out to the little rural island Paradise of Edisto. It’s like I moved to another planet, and time shifted. Edisto is very much like the 1950’s of my childhood, but this move brought great shifts in consciousness, lessons in detachment, and gifts I did not know were coming. My heart is simply full of gratitude.
Botany Bay Road Light, Edisto Island ©chwrenn'10
It was almost dark. The glow of light was invisible through the camera lens, and it wasn’t until I got back home and looked at the digital image that I saw it. Light at the end of this tunnel of trees is a metaphor that I see in my mind’s eye all the time, and this evening it appeared physically for me. Serendipidously.
As I age, I sense how brief my life is on this earth in my physical body. People and experiences move in and out of our lives. They leave us gifts if we are lucky. All we can do is hold on, really, with our eyes open toward expectancy…. To take this ride as awake as we can. Our hearts must crack open, too. Love comes, in waves, from many, often unexpected sources. If we are paying attention – which is, well, just everything. Simply paying attention.
Bumping into me from all sides lately are ideas and concepts of time, and light, and energy. Carl Jung called this synchronicity. It began with my stumbling upon T. S. Eliot’s delicious lines from The Four Quartets, while trying to process the end of a long love relationship in my life. “Love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter.” That felt true to me. Then, I read that people, once connected, as Lynn McTaggart writes in The Field, a extraordinary book about the quantum physics, of all things, are always connected. That time is one vast sea of energy. The existence of the Zero point field implies that all matter in the universe is interconnected by waves which are spread out through time and space and can carry on to infinity. I just finished The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and am devouring as fast as I can ingest, the jewel of A New Earth, which both confirm that we are more loving than we think we are.
Taillard de Chardin once said:
“The day will come when, after harnessing the winds, the tides and gravitation,
we shall harness for God the energies of love.
And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world,
man will have discovered fire.”
Seems downright silly doesn’t it? That it is as simple as this. For me, I am just going to keep looking for this light.
I was called to be an artist. And as an old old midwife said to me "If the Lord wants you to do something, you won't have no good luck' til you do." So, here I am, sharing what I love, longing to illuminate the work of art, which is everywhere.
Charleston Through an Artist's eye 
Breathtakingly beautiful post. You could have been quoting Martha, it’s all she talked about this weekend, connectedness, synchronicity and energy. She says the more time we spend in that state of one-ness (or just in thoughts about beloved newborn babies) the more we can heal the world. Amazing.
Synchronicity. Again. Thank you, sweetheart. You are one wide awake, amazing woman. I like that image, of thinking of a newborn, of pure potential.
Hi charlotte….Please post your paintings as soon as you finish.
Have always loved the light at the end of the tunnel….that’s hope!!!
Love you dear one, Diane
Charlotte… I love how you turn your thoughts into beautiful words. Thank you for sharing your luminosity.