Even though we may have forgotten more than we recall of our 10th grade English lit class, some of us have retained enough memory of the William Shakespeare section to recognize the blog title reference to his play Romeo and Juliet.
In Romeo’s soliloquy about his beloved Juliet, he compares her to the rising sun. There are various interpretations of what exactly Romeo was saying, although obviously he felt Juliet was brilliantly beautiful. But I like to think that, at least in part, he was alluding to Juliet being the light of his life.
Here’s my personal version of those lines: “Hush…be still. What light through yonder tree bough breaks? It’s early morning, and I’m facing East, so it must be the sun. Duh.”
No, seriously, I love sitting on my small front porch while I eat breakfast and watch the earliest of the sun’s rays play hide-and-seek through the trees’ leaves. Just this morning, I took the above photo of the sun peeking through in the upper left quadrant.
I love natural light. As I write this, I’m sitting in my room watching the morning sun create moving shadows of leaves dancing across the front of a daybed. Even though the sun will soon shift, I watch nature’s handiwork that’s being presented to me for the few minutes that it exists. This is my best writing time. I feel in harmony with the world.
One of my favorite national parks is Muir Woods National Monument. Located just outside San Francisco, it’s a deeply spiritual space to me. Light and shadow. Light and shadow. The leafy canopies of the towering Coastal Redwoods block most of the sun, but slants of light filter down. I am captivated by how the smaller trees and plants naturally lean toward the light to capture its benefits.
On one such observance of a small spindly tree that had bent itself nearly to a bow shape in its attempt to gain access to the rays, I remarked, “Anything to reach the light.”
We would do well to replicate nature’s behavior. I don’t want to live my life in the shadows. Always, I want to be stretching forward to reach the light.
To my readers: As always, any comments in response to my writing are greatly appreciated. Do you have a favorite time of day when you feel at one with the world?
My favorite time of the day is early in the morning for many reasons. I love the quiet, the time for reflection, the beautiful sun coming into my home, and perhaps, most important to me, my morning coffee. I always enjoy and look forward to your posts, Norma. Each one truly makes me think and want to respond. You have a way of engaging the reader.