Chiaroscuro

Day 288

“All the darkness of the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle, yet one candle can illuminate all the darkness.”

– Jewish Hanukah Prayer

It’s Food For Thought Friday, and today’s daily prompt is candle. When I saw that I thought I would easily be able to find an inspiring passage or poem to share that referenced candles, but I didn’t find anything that spoke to me, so I shifted gears to look for an appropriate quote instead.

I soon found the above featured quote, and that reminded me of a post I wrote at the end of February about the gift of darkness; which I described as an opportunity to let your light shine when you go through hard times.

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Quote Of The Day: Inspiring Words by Jewish Hanukah Prayer

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That gave me the idea to focus on poems about light and darkness rather than on candles, and still I found nothing. Frustrated that I hadn’t found the right passage, I decided to leave it for a while, and thought “it will come on its own.”

Immediately after that, I turned on the television, and the woman on the screen was describing a painting. This is what she said: “This is chiaroscuro; light, dark. You can’t have one without the other.“

I’m planning on writing a post about the contrast between light and darkness. Hmm. 

My thoughts have been focused on the energy experiments I’m doing, and I’m constantly thinking that I have the ability to bring whatever I want into my experience, so that’s exactly what I’m doing.

I had not heard the term before, and wasn’t even quite sure how to spell it. Curious, I looked it up and found out that Chiaroscuro is a technique of using light and shade in art. When I went back to work on this post, I found the perfect passage, and also came across several images of butterflies even though I wasn’t looking for anything remotely related to them – I guess my intention from a couple of days ago to find butterflies is still working for me.

In every one of us a Light burns,
A Light that pushes us to be better than what we are,
A Light that pushes us towards perfection,
The Light is the cause of happiness, love, and bliss.

The Light is only contrasted by the Darkness,
A Darkness which resides within each of us.

The Darkness brings us down,
And it seeks to extinguish the Light.
The Darkness causes hatred, envy, and chaos.

Where the Light is success, the Darkness is failure;
Where the Light is freedom, the Darkness is imprisonment;
Where the Light is satisfaction, the Darkness is remorse;
Where the Light is forgiveness, the Darkness is blame;
Where the Light is good, the Darkness is evil;
Where the Light is God, the Darkness is Satan.

And where the Light is serenity, the Darkness is frustration.

And inside each of us the battle between Light and Darkness rages.

Everything in life breathes both the Light and the Dark.
Every action and every reaction in life is ruled by this clash.
Every injustice and every act of morality,
Every feeling of guilt and every sense of forgiveness.

Both the Light and Darkness resides in each of us.

– Trever Barlow

Which are you allowing to control your life?

Thank you, thank you, thank you!