Redtree Times

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

—Terry Pratchett

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Last week, I featured a painting called Early Riser and spoke a bit about being just that– an early riser.  This is another new piece in that same vein, a 30″ by 30″ canvas that deals with the Red Tree greeting the first light of morning as it sweeps away the darkness of night.  I call this painting First Flame.

I’ve been thinking about this relationship with light, about the need to not waste the light of the day.  It reminds me of the rarity of light in this universe and how much darkness there is throughout its vastness, punctuated by the light of distant stars.

Light means life in this universe, so far as we know.  Everything we depend on for our continued survival is itself dependent on light and perhaps we ourselves are comprised of  and animated by light.

We are beings of light.

And perhaps there is a type reverence shown here in this painting with that knowledge at hand.

Looking now at this painting after writing these words, I can see many things in it which confirm this interpretation.  The cemetery in the shadow of the church, for example– an implication of death being devoid of light.  The orchard at the bottom right that waits for the feeding light of the sunlight. And the fruit stands that are dark and closed.

So long as the sun rises each morning, life goes on– for us as a group and for personally for myself.

To use my all-time favorite Kurt Vonnegut-ism: So it goes…