"Let there be light." With these words, proclaims the book of Genesis, the sacred process of creation was begun. Greek mythology, similarly, depicts the conquest over Chaos by ordered illumination, while the cosmologist cites a dazzling explosion of brightness as the birth of the universe. At all levels, the emergence of light has been intimately intertwined with the mergence of life--dawn represents the resurrection of day; Lazarus stumbled into sunlight from gm blackness of his tomb; the infant completes a journey from the unlit womb to the bright world. It is therefore understandable that humankind has always considered light an essential element of existence.
Vision, on a purely sensual plane, is the perception of such light. Radiating from a primary source and reflecting off opaque surfaces, rays are filtered through the eye end interpreted by the mind. The human species is vastly dependent on this process: although provided with five senses, the brain gathers well over halt its external information through the eyes.
Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglican Ch...
Watch for the blind. With loving memory of my grea...
A folded long cane. The long cane is the primary m...On a spiritual level, however, vision is endowed with much greater significance. Buddha implored us to seek 'inner light"; Jesus Christ crowned himself "the light of the world"; Ancient Egyptians abandoned mere metaphor and literally worshipped the sun. Is light a profound substance, as previously discussed, but self-fulfillment relies on perception of this light; it relies on vision.
Darkness is the perfect antagonist to light. It is an utter absence of illumination; it is the night, which devours the day; it is the womb, which we escaped, and the tomb to which we must return. Humans have always feared the dark, from the small child who cringes in her bed to the old man whose night-light is never unplugged. What is so terrifying about darkness is its deprivation of vision. Just as one finds comfort and...