Four colly birds

On the fourth day of Christmas, we should take the time
to think of those others whose lives aren't as fine
as ours, in their fullness, their richness and glee,
for much suffering results from unintentional greed.

Before pursuing the thread of meaning which was introduced yesterday, I'd like to stop for a moment and reflect upon the relationship between light and spirituality that was mentioned as well. For as long as I can remember, and I'm pretty sure for as long as anyone can remember, there has been an intimate connection between Light and Spirit, between Light and whatever it is we conceive a God-like entity to be. Prior to monotheism, the sun literally played the light role. Within the monotheistic traditions, God was associated with light. What is more, even in the non-theistic religions, such as Buddhism, candles and light play no insignificant role. Why might that be?

Regardless of any other associations we may be carrying around in our heads, anyone who has ever taken a closer look at light itself cannot help but be amazed. OK, a bit of stretch. We can't see light. If you look into a container full of only light, all you will see is darkness. What we see, literally, are those objects from which light is being reflected. We don't see light, we can only perceive its reflection. And for those of you that are now having thoughts of mirrors forming in your heads ... yes, we have to ask ourselves perhaps which side of the looking glass we're on.

Seriously, however, light may be the most fascinating thing in our universe. Nothing can accelerate faster (for you neutrino buffs ... Einstein only spoke of acceleration, not velocity), but even more amazing, it is the one thing that can apparently be two things at once. When speaking of light, we most often hear words like "ray" or "wave", for light does in fact behave like a wave, under certain circumstances. Strangely enough, though, light can also be found in particle form, as photons, as they are called. In other words, sometimes light is a wave, sometimes a particle. When is it one, and when is it the other? The answer, as is so often the case in life, is "it depends".

The situation plays a big part in it, of course, but at the "moment of truth", it appears that the light "knows" what it needs to be and expresses itself appropriately. As strange as that may sound, there is a strong case to be made for light "making the decision" itself. Expressed in simplest terms, light apparently shares certain properties of consciousness. I certainly don't expect you to take my word for it. A well-argued and well-documented presentation can be found in Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe. (For those of you who don't know of him, Young is the person who figured out how to make helicopters fly.) Could it be that light itself is the link between the physical and metaphysical? It's hard to say, but it certainly gives us something to think about at this reflective time of year.