Several weeks ago now, returning a lampshade, I was taken with the overhead light display in the store, every inch of the ceiling holding a different fixture. While the owner processed my return I stood looking at the hundreds of fixtures, fascinated. I was taken with how completely different they were and wondered how I would possibly choose if given the opportunity to outfit a whole house.
This morning, the first article in a favorite daily email, “Nice News,” shared this:
“A Reddit post that has been circulating the internet recently claims that on July 8 — today — 99% of the world’s population will get sunlight at the same time. An editor at Timeanddate.com dug deeper into this claim to find out if it’s true, and it turns out that it mostly is. At 11:15 UTC, it’s nighttime for about 80 million people, daytime for 6.4 billion, and twilight for 1.2 billion. Combining those last two means that roughly 99% of the global population has some light. There is a catch, given that a few hundred million people are experiencing what’s called “astronomical twilight” during that time, when the angle of the sun is such that it is indiscernible to the naked eye. Still, we think this is a pretty fun fact worthy of sharing with friends and colleagues today.”
As you know, light is one of my favorite words, topics, hopes, and intentions for how to live. It gives me joy to invite all of us into that space together, even if it is seemingly just through a crack.
How can we not take this information about the actual physical light in our world today and see it as a metaphor?
What if 99% of the global population also shines inner light, not just as a one-time occurrence worth noting for its unusualness, but an everyday occurrence that changes the world?
It took me back to the store and gazing up at the huge display of light fixtures.
The real reason I took the photo was not to mull the choices.
The real reason was that in gazing up at the hundreds of designs I was reminded that each person is a specific design, a capacity for light in his, her, their uniqueness. Each of us likely has a range of watt capacity, too, though perhaps some of us are designed to be nightlights with only one little bulb. That one little bulb, however, makes all the difference.
Perhaps we are like the lights on my stairs that I mentioned in another writing, a light that comes on as needed and without hesitation. There’s not even the chance for hesitation…the light can’t help but shine.
I know there are days when my life light shines only as if the dimmer switch is on the lowest setting, not quite off completely but not expanding very far. Other days, it feels just right for the day or the situation, whether lighting me internally or extending to others.
The level is not the point. What struck me about this morning’s article, combined with memory of the store display, is that when we, as the people who walk this globe, shine our individual lights, there is the possibility and maybe even the probability that we can change the world, far beyond one 24 hour event.
Can you imagine if we the people lived in one another’s light all the time and all at the same time?
I was also musing how in this month of July when I am putting extra focus on “not knowing” (I invite you to subscribe to my website blog…www.dawnsullypile.com) that light helps me live with and in what I do not know.
Light softens the unknown/unanswered and reminds me that what I do not know is not all there is.
Light shines on a space or person or event on the periphery in a way that lets me see the bigger vista of life when I get too entangled in the unknown, inviting me to step away and into the grace of being invited into balance.
99% of us with all our different variations of light at the same time. What a changed world we would create.
How could we help but be filled with the presence of and to one another in all of our magnificent varied designs and colors?
