The darker the days, the more intensely I feed on light and
its many derivative reflections & refractions. Walking to and from work,
through dark streets, I intently fix my gaze on dancing rows of streetlamps vanishing
into the distance, with squinted eyes I bravely stare into the glaring headlights
of an oncoming truck, I bide my time at crossings to revel in the red harmonies
of traffic lights and taillights.
And best of all is the shimmering shadowy
world of a rainy street at night – the dark gleam of wet asphalt (B’s black sun
indeed!), the trailing lights, the dark hurried shades, the pale phantom faces
of people waiting at a bus stop (staring at their phones).
When I’m not out there in the world, dazzled by its shiny lights,
I cherish the quiet luminosity of the printed pages of the book I'm reading.
I read about longings for light and transcendence,
startlingly similar across regions, cultures and ages. From Baal in Zenobia’s Palmyra to Sol Invictus
[unvanquished sun] in Aurelius’ Rome to Christmas Day.
Notes
[Aurelian] established, as the central and focal point of
Roman religion, a massive and strongly subsidised cult of Sol Invictus.
The birthday of the god was to be on 25 December, and this,
transformed into Christmas Day, was one of the heritages which Christianity
owed to the solar cult.
[…] Aurelian was deeply influenced by the Syrian veneration
of the Sun which the relatives of Septimius, coming from that land, had done so
much to extend.
Zenobia’s capital Palmyra […] was a center of solar
theology, as its temple of the Sun-god Malachbel (Baal)[…] shows.
Origen (d254) linked Christ to the rising of the sun – and in
the same period a mosaic beneath St Peter
showed a composite Christ-Helios.
(from Michael Grant - The
Climax of Rome)
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