Light and Fire

Light and fire are two of the most potent and universal symbols, found in every tradition, in every culture. Like all true symbols, they convey meaning, not just information, and bring to conscious awareness what our inner being already knows. Just the words “light” and “fire” resonate with all of us. We use symbols to take us to a place of communion and profound connection with the deepest truths. Because symbols speak to the inmost realms within all of us, symbols are also a means of profound communion and connection with other people, as we dive through the symbol into the shared mystery of being.

We associate light with all that is higher. We speak of dawn and daybreak as signs of hope and new possibilities; we speak of the inner light, seeing the light, following our highest light. Light symbolically connects us with the source of all life. And fire is both creative and destructive energy, death and rebirth. It consumes and purifies, and it also gives light and warmth. One candle can illuminate the darkness, and one flame can light another.

When we are consciously aware of these symbols, we can use them to inform our daily reality. Through conscious awareness we can use the streetlights at night, the reflection of light on the leaves of a tree, a lamp in a window, the flame of a candle, as a thread that takes us to a deeper source, an awareness of what light and fire symbolize.  The sun is a reminder of the source of life. And flame is a reminder of the sacred fire of our life energy.

The fire of our being lights us from within, the light of our attention illumines all things, and we are the light that sees both light and darkness.

© 2022 Shanti Natania Grace

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How the Light Comes

I cannot tell you
how the light comes.

What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.

That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.

That it loves
searching out
what is hidden,
what is lost,
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.

That it has a fondness
for the body,
for finding its way
toward flesh,
for tracing the edges
of form,
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.

I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.

And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still

to the blessed light
that comes.

—Jan Richardson

Posted in Jan Richardson’s blog “The Painted Prayerbook”