Through a glass darkly

Just before the sun's rays woke me this morning I dreamt that I was messing around with candles, but not very carefully so that I realised the wax had gone in my eyes. I couldn't see properly, just puddles of colour. I feared the candles may have set fire to things around them whilst I was unable to make out where one ended and the next began. On waking, my first thought was, 'That was how it must be to have cataracts.'

Our eyes let the world in and so they can also imprison us. The dream made me imagine the panic of suddenly realising that that faculty had gone. It's easy to be blasé. I'm short-sighted and for so long that I have become used to it, see the benefits in it. After all, sometimes it's useful to see the world out of focus.
I discovered even at school, that when addressing a large body of people, it was easier if you couldn't see them clearly. But if the option isn't there, that's different Ma'am, scary.

Then there is the impact of light. Without it no-one would be able to see. There is a line from the poem 'McCavity the mystery cat' that has stuck with me since school days.
'And every cat in the twilight's grey, every possible cat.' A fine line, so many things that can go wrong and suddenly trap us in our physical world instead of allowing us to freely enjoy it. Without the light, everything is blurred, shadowy, grey.

And as with the physical, so with the intellectual. Plato's people, us, sitting in our cave experiencing the world as shadows cast on the back of the cave, until one day someone breaks free of the cave and discovers the real world that is casting those shadows. The people back in the cave will not believe her when she comes back to share her new-found knowledge. Why should they? To Plato this is because the one who returns to the cave is the philosopher, bringer of knowledge and wisdom.
To me it's someone with just another veil, language and personal experience. Those trapped in the cave at least experience the shadows for themselves. The philosopher tries to explain what she or he alone has experienced and with mere words.

It always comes back to words. I always come back to words. Right now I'm hopping off this lily-pad, I'll be able to find it again, it's such a familiar one.

Today is Austen's birthday and for the first time that I can remember, I can't even ring him to wish him a happy one. Austen and his family are in Glastonbury. Although the word is synonymous with the music festival, to us Brits it is also a place of mysticism. Actually, the west in general is pretty mystical. If you think of that big bulge at the bottom of England, go east and you come to an area of the highest UFO sightings in the country, follow a ley line to the west and you come to places of the most ancient mystery.

The Tor is a place of feminine power. There are levels, a path that winds around the Tor up to the summit. Women walk those levels on days of spiritual power such as Beltain and Samhain. People in general walk them whenever they are there.

Today was also my friend's dad's birthday. I know he's still around. I'm going to wish both a Happy Birthday knowing that there are veils that hinder communication with both today, but having faith that both will just know we're thinking about them.