EBU (Senir Group) Fine Work "Darkness Filled with Light" Dzintra Zuravska(68, female, Latvia) |
An expression heard once upon a time came to my mind: darkness might be filled with light, but silence charged with shouts of terror. You ask, if I knew what does "the light" mean. Someday I knew it. I still remember transparently greenish summer mornings. I remember green light softly shining through foliage of birches freshly abloom. Remember sunflower enveloped by golden yellow petals like sunrays. Remember blue sky high above my head and blue sea horizon, red sunsets in violet evening clouds and pearly grey fog rising above the river. I remember much more. I know all rainbow colours and shades. There is only one colour "black" which I wouldn't like to think off now. Now I have another light awareness, to which I travelled during many long years. I broke my way through desperation and hopelessness like through dark forest, when next step seamed to be the last one. There were moments, when I wished not to live anymore. Just this craving for light helped me to stay within boundaries of life. Transition from light to darkness is hard task. Consciousness cries like a wounded falcon that cannot fly up to the sky anymore. Once there was a horizon filled with light, but suddenly... Last thing I remember, were brightly shining lights of colliding car ? like a flame of lightning. And after that.... Darkness -- deep, thick, insurmountable darkness. If you still ask, "What is the light?" I know about darkness... I learned about it in all its kinds and manifestations, have fought against it like one, who fights against stone wall, I have stepped into darkness as into a sticky pitch, but also wrapped it around myself like a warm, flowery blanket, when body was cooling and spirit freezing. Darkness isnot completely black, as might appear, it(similarly to light) consists of many overtones and shades ? from clearly transparent to pitch black, it could be gloomy and grey like hopelessness, where one can loose one's way like traveller on swampy path during foggy weather. This is the colour of desperation, when you beg for the smallest flickering of light. Yet, it is not allowed to you. Yes, I know the colour of dark and desperation, pain and hopelessness. Only didn't I know the colour of hope, happiness and joy. It was still far way to go through disbelief, doubts and obscurity. I couldn't manage it on my own ? without the loved ones next to me. They supported and cheered me up, not allowing to lapse into hopelessness. They kept alive my belief and hope for tomorrow -- while man hopes, he lives. First moments were the hardest, when one understands, that absurd accident or fatal turning point has taken away the light for ever. And it's useless to ask "Why? For what?". Now I tend to think ? it is because by losing "big light" it's possible to get enlightenment of heart and thought. Perhaps, I was too narrow-hearted and self-centred, thinking, that this world exists for sake of me. Providence makes us to re-estimate values and realize that world doesn't exist for our sake, but live because of it. Only upon us ourselves depends, how much of it we let in. After I realized, what had happened, firstly it seemed, that world(as such) is lost for ever, vanished away. There is nothing left, only black night. I felt myself as in the centre of huge emptiness, when it is terrible to put forward even one small step, because it seems, that next moment you may fall into abyss. It seems that you yourself are no more. Only your spirit lives, that flies in endless and edgeless universe. There is nothing, wherein thought and hope can take a shelter. But then first noises, sounds and words broke through black hopelessness. These are my near and loved ones, who cheer me up, though consciousness silently cries, that this is the end to it all, and other things don't mean anything. Yet slowly comes understanding, that you are not alone in this world, abandoned in your solitude and despair. Other people are next to you, who try to support and encourage. Soon I started to realize, that world is not enclosed within four walls of my room. The wider it opened, the further darkness stepped away. I don't need to see any longer, I feel things around and other people next to me. I recognize them by their voices, from hardly perceivable mood I know if they smile and feel satisfied or depressed by troubles and problems. Then I try not to make their everyday burden heavier with my sorrows but help them with smile and light thoughts to overcome all difficulties. I can feel myself as wholesome family member and participant in my life. My perception is sharpened and fingers have become sensitive. I feel the light; feel the warmth that emanates from it. It gives me understanding about sun ? not only about heavenly body, which shines high above our heads, but also about phenomenon, which enlightens each man's life, divides day from night and light from darkness and gives the reason to living. My fingers have become so sensitive that I perceive not only radiance, that flows out of surrounding things, pictures and colours, but to realize dotted script on thick cardboard leaves, as well. Walls of my room have started to retreat, letting expanse of the world therein. Now Iknow, how gusty wind spreads the sail, know, how sagebrushes steam up in the meadow during midday swelter, I know the smell of freshly mown hay, how field of rye smokes up into the air through flowery pollen and how apples in the garden grow red. I know, how in sunny autumns cranes fly away, sorrowfully crying. I can even guess what snow smells like, when it covers the earth with winter blanket, and how it smells in the springtime, when it, joyfully purling, flows away in small streamlets and brooklets. Again, I remember, know and understand everything. But there was a time, when I didn't wish to put my palms on these leaves, bespeckled with small dots, because was afraid of pain, that world might do to me. I am very grateful to man, who invented this alphabet combined of small dots, because through it I can feel the world again. My silence is not charged with terror. My darkness is filled with light. |
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