The Lesson of the Prism



Shortly after my eyes opened to the glow of the new sun coming over the mountains, my mind went deep into story.  In an instant I was engaged in a silent argument in my own head.  Within minutes I was knee deep in mind made controversy and trying to gage my next plan of attack.  I was amazed by how quickly the story formed and how far down the rabbit hole I went with it before I remembered that I was in my bedroom with my husband sleeping peacefully by my side.  ‘Oh, you are entertaining your self again, Nancy.’ I mentally noted.  ‘It’s station KNAN coming to you live 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  We exploit every angle of every story and run an endless tickertape across your newsfeed so that even when you mute the sound you can still catch every juicy tidbit.’

Just then, my eyes glimpsed the blue sky outside of my window and I felt such deep inner peace.  The sky seems to always bring me a sense of unity, whether filled with clouds or stars; I know that it is the One sky that brings all of us together under a single roof.  As I looked deep into the blue this morning, my mind flashed images of the moon, the planets and the sun all whizzing by at the speed of light.  I could see our whole galaxy and the solar system beyond that until with a wrinkle of my brow the irresolvable question came into my mind … Where do the cosmos stop?

The concept of infinity had bothered me since I was a young child.  How could the universe go on forever?  I could not visualize the concept.  Ah-ha!  What if infinity was indeed only a concept?!  What if it was not true?  What if the universe didn’t exist at all?

For me the idea of infinity is where everything we tried to convince ourselves about the laws of science unraveled like a knitting project tackled by a playful kitten.  We surround ourselves with illusions of space and time, draw maps, launch rockets, theorize quantum anomalies until we puff ourselves up to believe in our own separate existence.  But when push comes to shove the end of the cosmos out into infinity, well then that’s where I get off the bus.  If my mind can’t understand the truth of the infinity of matter, than perhaps matter is entirely an illusion.

rainbow-on-wallInteresting of course, but still only an abstract concept until my eyes caught a glimpse of the whirling prisms dancing across my bedroom wall.  I watched the rainbow spears fly by and disappear in the space between my wall and the side of a book case.  Suddenly it was clear, the prism could only be apperceived in the presence of matter.  Without form (such as the wall) there was no rainbow to experience.  The formless needs form in order to experience its Self.   But sometimes we get so caught up in the matter of our own creation, that we forget our true nature as the amorphous light of the prism in the absence of the wall.

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