Following the light is a series of pictures taken when I was drawn out because of the light. Mainly looking at contrasts in the evening or morning light in the seaside town where I live in Devon. One evening I was working in my office and noticed some of the cloud structures. I had tried to photo some of the sunsets before, some have unbelievable colour but never caught just what I wanted. I am an amiture photographer so these are very much as taken

Light and dark are so important in our lives - binary contrasts but it is in  the in between places that potential is to be found - the what if's and could be's. The edge of darkness and light is the liminal place threshold where the worlds meet. Across vast expanse of sea the celts cast their skin covered coracle into the water and waited to see where the wind would take them - blown by the wind of the Spirit. There was little fear of what might cause them harm because to find such a place offered the holy task of "praying it back into the love of God's creation". So even the darkest places were those that contrasted the light and offered potentiality. The psychologist Carl Jung believed that the 'shadow' held the treasure that we needed to balance our lives. It's not quiet true to say we spend the first 9 months of our life in the darkness of the womb, but it's  near enough.  Its the place we grew amazingly. Matthew Fox theologian and spiritual guru equates this with a often unrecognised inner need within us to go Spelunking or going down into caves. Finding the quiet and solitude that our everyday world does not offer us. 

I was terrified of the dark as a child, particularly when waking from sleep at night. The dark ment the unknown, what lurked out there? Perhaps now darkness speaks of potential, unknown but not unknowable. Darkness would be nothing without the contrast of the light. But even using the term darkness is an oversimplification because it is rare to find complete darkness, there is too often still light; street lights, the moon, stars or just the sky itself. I find it amazing that light can travel through time and space to reach us from so far back in the past. That some of the stars we see now are no longer in existence only the light still traveling like a photonic memory of what once was is the cosmos's gift to us.

Light layered by the condensation of water droplets gives the clouds the colour that is variously reflected from the sea over which they flow. This is not just a sky thing. The artists of the Newlyn School settled in Penwith was largely because the light was reflected from three sides by the sea. 

Much as I love cloudless days of sunshine how much more is the sky showing in the Nimbostratus clouds reaching 10 - 20,000 feet up. Heavy bottomed with rain bearing cumulus scurringing beneath them. 

Life should be full of contrast. People say that they hate change, but it's usually about the unknown. Perhaps because of historic trauma or fear of not being able to adapt or just because of shame that they may not manage the transition, the fear of moving from one thing to another is a huge fear. Perhaps the greatest existential threat for people is the conception of what might happen a the point of death. To go back to the analogy of the baby in the womb John O'Donohue suggests that dying may be similar to being born. The baby is probably very happy warm in the mother's womb, and yet the day comes for birth, which for the baby must be a traumatic event, but in the cause of events must be an inevitably. O'Donohue considers the thought that death may be like this. Re born into an unknown as yet way yet as full of potential as life becomes to the baby. Tobe sure it is at the moment unknowable but mayhap it is not what we expect.

Darkness and light are never the only options a myriad of inbetweens exist as well.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing these pictures - if you use them please acknowledge where they were from and I reserve ownership of them. Please like them or share the post.

Chris Rowberry May 24