Yesterday marked the
first day of the Hindu festival of Diwali,
so today I’m grateful for all celebrations that mark the symbolic triumph of
good over evil, of light over darkness and of sweetness over bitterness.
As I have since
coming to the Valley they call Silicon, this year I again massed candles to
drive back all manner of dark things. Not only do I like the soft light that
groups of candles give off, the very act of lighting them one at a time and
nursing along some of the ones at the end of their life slows me down. It calms
me down.
Filling a room with
candle light takes time; you can’t flip a switch and move on to the next task
on your to-do list. And if you’re lighting those floating jobbers, you have to
be very focused on not disturbing the water, because then it dowses the flames
and you have to wipe them off and start over again. It’s like the
count-breaths-to-21 methodology of meditation: if you lose count because your
monkey mind is distracted, you have to begin again from one.
There are some days I
never make it into double digits.
But there’s something
about knowing how happy the moving lights will make me that enables me to
persevere with candles. I light them, sit back and watch; and for at least a
few minutes the world around me is peaceful and full of hope. Light prevails
over darkness, love conquers fear, and good triumphs over evil.
Happy Diwali, all.
1 comment:
Just reading this left me calmer and even serene. Thanks!
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