Contrasts

It was a long winter.

​The snowbound days of a Vermont winter bring interminably long nights, and excruciatingly short days. I dreaded those months, but no longer. I have discovered that the relentless solitude provides me the opportunity to re-boot. Come January, I slip into a sort of creative incubation. Without the stimulation of being in nature, without its glorious melodies and scents, without the moist grass, slipping between my toes, I grow quiet...until Spring's first shimmering shafts of light appear.

A return visit to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico this month, provided me a jumpstart on my much needed light therapy.

​I discovered something new, photographically speaking, with this visit to SMA. Not completely awake from my creative slumber, I strolled the streets each day in search of inspiration. Finally, day 7, there it was — shafts of light. The vibrant confetti colors of San Miguel took a back seat this time to light. Light, the very ingredient that was missing from my Vermont diet, the essential building block I was starving for.

With streaks of light revealing themselves to me wherever I turned, I realized it was my light deprivation that made me hypersensitive. How could I possibly appreciate light if I never experienced the darkness of winter? How could I appreciate the sun's warmth without enduring the frigid days of the north? Simply, I can't. It was this contrast that led me to a valuable understanding.

Finding myself washed in both shadow and light, I gave permission for this phenomenon to take hold. I stopped cursing the cold of the north and settled down to what was. Our entire physical world is based on duality, so I better get with the program, and accept what is.

Thank you darkness, thank you light.

​Live in color,
Abby