It is 7am and 10 degrees. I am sitting outside on the east side of my house, bundled up in a coat and blanket. I position my body so that the sun is directly in my face, its strongest rays beaming right into the center of my forehead, the place of the third eye.

The rays bore through my head and begin to fill my mind with streams of liquid gold. I feel these streams of light running through the spaces and flowing down through the rest of my body, breaking through blocks of anger, sadness, selfishness, and unbelief. They leave in their wake illumination and warmth. I open my eyes and the snow dances with crystalline brilliance; the long shadows cast by the trees seem alive. I reach up and touch my forehead, convinced there is an actual hole there.

I love nothing more than light in all of its various physical and metaphysical forms. I am often struck dumb by an illuminated cloud or the way the sunlight catches on the golden mane of my horse…or perhaps most lovely, the brilliance of a friend’s smiling face, radiating from the center. I find myself wondering if magic has ignited them, as they seem to be aflame of their own accord.

But something is the source. Einstein said, “The speed of light is constant.” So, it’s traveling from somewhere, to somewhere. We’re seeing the light as it’s journeying in waves, at a speed I cannot even comprehend.

I don’t possess the intelligence or scientific knowledge to claim that I know this source. The sun is a very obvious answer, but somehow, it feels more complex than that.

And so I ponder…wondering how each lumen, traveling on its journey, combines with millions of others to ignite the individual strands of fuzz on a horse’s ears. And why…why…it brings me so much peace and joy.