The Light or the Reflection

“There are two ways of spreading the light:  to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” (Thomas Kinkade)  Does art speak to your heart in one form or another?  It could be a painting or prose, film, music or another form of creative art.  Beauty & truth so often touch our hearts.  Perhaps it is the wonder of the ultimate canvass of nature that does our hearts the most good.  What might be common to all arts that reach us at our heart’s level?  We each may have a different answer to that question.  My answer would be “light.” 

When we think of heaviness we likely liken this to darkness while levity reminds us of light.  Since it has been an especially heavy year my gratitude & pursuing light is greater than ever.  I refuse to remain sucked into the vortex of darkness no matter what happens to me in this life.  It may take a great deal of effort at times to look for people & things that can reignite our flames.  The light is however there I know without a doubt.  As we enter literally into the season of the year where we receive the least day light I find myself ensuring that there are many forms of chosen light invited into everyday life. 

For those rainy, dull days inside of us and/or outside our doors there are forms of light as the antidote.  Last year I purchased a salt light.  The jury is still out in my opinion on whether these are a mood lifter during the winter months but it sure does not seem to do any harm so why not.  On gift wish lists any time of the year I always have at the very top, beeswax votive candles.  These are a real treat I find.  I love lighting them & enjoying the gorgeous scent as well as that feeling of being drawn into the beauty of the light from the dancing flames.  I save the candles for times when I am writing or other special quiet moments from time to time.  How about that comforting feeling when we make ourselves either a cup of tea, coffee, hot chocolate or hot apple cider & grab a blankie & sit in front of a fireplace?  There is that time in the day where we may decide to dawn a  super soft scarf, bundle up in our jacket & go out for a walk in nature allowing the sunlight to touch our faces as we experience the crunch, crunch of fallen leaves under our feet.  If we walk along the shoreline we get to see the reflection of the sun’s face off of the water as it glistens & glimmers a hello to us.  Don’t you find light in one form or another to be healing?  I sure do.

In circling back to our favourite forms of art that light us up, do you have favourite painters, musicians, writers and other artists?  Light to me often feels parallel to hope.  I cannot look at something that contains light & not feel lifted or hopeful thank goodness.  I hope that is true for you too.  My favourite painter is Thomas Kinkade who was known as “the painter of light.”  I never tire of looking at that artist’s paintings especially the ones where the light reflects from a window inviting us into the home in the picture.  My musical preferences are quite eclectic.  Some of my favourites though contain a champion’s viewpoint & are strengthening.  They are the types of songs that tell the story that there are struggles in life however we will keep going & growing stronger.  Two of my favourite encouraging songs are “Tubthumping” & “The Fight Song.”  I play those very loudly on the especially difficult days.  When it comes to authors, there are some real gems out there.  I always have a stack of books that I look forward to reading.  Since I decided a long time ago that my stack was getting taller than the time I can realistically engage in reading, I have naturally leaned towards non fiction.  The books that I am attracted to contain nuggets of wisdom that I look forward to learning from & I plan on learning until my very last breath.  The list of encouraging, inspiring, light promoting authors is too long to include so I will just include a tiny percentage of my all time favourites:  Hal Urban, Thomas Kinkade, Matthew Kelly, Stephen Covey, Hyrum W. Smith, Kevin Leman, Michael Gaitley, Donald Calloway, Emilie Barnes and C.S. Lewis.  The list could go on & on because I love books big time.  There are so many forms of art & for sure you will know exactly who & which ones are your favourite artists or forms of art.  I hope that you derive as much inspiration & energy as you possibly can from whichever art form speaks to your heart.

You are likely quite familiar with the saying, “that person lights up the room.”  That is the person that many are drawn to.  We seem to just plain be drawn to light in a natural way.  We just may want to make sure that we add or keep as many of those light up the room type people in our lives.  If ever something were a great contagion it would be to catch some of that light up the room for ourselves to share with others & so on. 

Admittedly, it has been an uphill battle maintaining light in my own life over the past year in particular.  It has been a heavy year.  I am continuing to go out of my way to keep my own flame lit while doing my best to also keep flames lit for others too.  At best I am merely a reflection of light & at times not as vibrantly lit as I would like to be.  I refuse to let my flame totally extinguish though & this means that I will always keep going even when the going gets tough.  You keep your flame lit too.  We are in this life together.

On a very celebratory note I would love to share with you that one of my 4 autoimmune illnesses is going into remission.  It has taken indescribable effort, trial & error & many crocodile tears & a rascal’s determination however after almost 2 years I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It seems very fitting that the thing that has caused one of my autoimmune “365’s” to start to go into remission is literally the light.  Since mid-September I have been going to light box therapy at the hospital 3 days a week.  It is finally working!  I have been warned by others living with this same autoimmune illness that the remission tends to be short lived.  In any case today I appreciate the remission however long it lasts.   I will be celebrating.  It is the little wins that can mean so much.  Sometimes the win is on the day when somehow against the odds we have in range blood sugars for the whole day & feel like we could take on the world.  Some days the win is in just not giving up.  One way or the other we each have the heart of a champion with flames bigger or smaller on any given day yet always lit.

My heart’s hope for you is that you surround yourself on purpose with things that light your heart up & don’t ever let your flame go out.  You are a beautiful original & you never know who is watching you & lighting their candle from yours.

Smiles,

Saundie

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year & Blessings now & in 2016!   I will be taking a bit of a break to recharge for the New Year. My family & I are also going to have some fun in the form of some sunlight soon somewhere warmer than my wee corner of the world.  We are big time excited.   The next story sharing will be on January 11^th.  Be extra gentle with yourself.  Keep lighting up your wee corner of the world with beautiful you!  Be a candle, be a reflection or be both :)