Light Comes Before Growth

March 22, 2022
Owl Feather Farm, San Juan Island

Everyone thinks of spring as the greening time, when growth begins anew after the gray dank and dark of winter. Indeed, our grass is shooting up (spring mowing started last week); buds are swelling on the apples, pears, cherries and plums; rhubarb leaves are crinkling their way out of the ground and our first true spring flowers have come to bloom.
But what really comes first is light.
In our latitude—48.5N—the vernal equinox not only brings equal days and nights, it calls up a burgeoning of light that’s astounding. Right now we’re gaining almost 4 minutes of daylight every day; back at the end of December, after the solstice, the gain was mere seconds a day.
The difference is detectable both spiritually and physically. The sense of more light pervades our consciousness even if we don’t actually stop to look at the clock around 7pm and realize that today there will be 3 minutes and 58 seconds more that the sun hangs above our Vancouver Island horizon. It’s like losing weight, if that’s something you’ve ever needed to do: You need not step on a scale to feel different.
All this extra light is a happenstantial gift of the solar system’s geometry—at least, it’s happenstance if you believe the universe is random, and if you live above or below the equator. But is it random?

There’s no concrete answer to that question contained in healing. “God does not play dice with the universe,” Einstein said. As light comes on, the question is whether we play dice with our own lives. Best to seek and treasure light, appreciate the growth it engenders, and let the universe run its own course.

-Eric Lucas 

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