The Illuminating Garden

Last night we went to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. It was truly stupendous.

It is amazing how, as adults, we still all open our eyes wide and Ooooo when we look at shiny colorful things, just like babies do. Thank goodness for our primate color vision-what a rich world we have the opportunity to enjoy.

My friend and I were having a hard time discerning whether or not the swelling and swirling glass sculptures were lit from the inside, or the light that was directed toward them was just reflecting in such an intense and sparkling way that it looked like they had lights inside. Fiber optics I thought, perhaps. We leaned and strained and squinted to figure out the truth of the matter.

As we walked among the tremendous exaggerated, playful and stunning pieces framed in the evening darkness, we talked about our lives, as we always do, and what was bothering us and what was helping us. We were dwarfed by the art and I liked it because it seemed like our problems were dwarfed too.

Then it occurred to me that the the concept of being lit from the inside or the outside is a near perfect metaphor for people.

Do great and strong people possess some kind of internal energy that emanates to those around them, or are some just positioned and shaped in a way that they have the ability to reflect the light of others brightly and with dazzling and directed force, the world may never know...