Images of light
The summer equinox occurred recently. Normally, I’m not among those who give much thought to this phenomenon. For that credit, the ultimate distinction goes to Aristotle, who lived 2,300 years ago. On solstice day, I pondered durations of light, lengthy and brief, and how the longest day has now begun its slow process of shortening by a minute or so each subsequent day. This means I’ll get a tiny amount more sleep after 5:08 a.m., when I awoke on summer’s first day. Of course, the reverse is true. Sunset was at 8.25 p.m. that day and at 8:24 p.m. the day after, which means I ought to end my evening walk a minute earlier if I’m to avoid darkness. Throw in daylight saving time, and the calculus gets complicated.
About 20 winters ago, we took a family trip to England and toured Stonehenge on a dreary, cold day. Missing were Druids who eagerly await the astronomical day when perfect alignment of sunrise passes precisely through the gaps among the massive stones at the historical site. Two thousand miles east of Stonehenge, Indiana Jones solved the Light Chamber puzzle (see the internet for the solution), and nearly 3,900 miles to the west, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), nerdy students and rowdy gawkers line up before sunrise on the equinox to experience solar rays beaming perfectly east to west down the infinite corridor – actually 825 feet.
Also at MIT, in 1957, Professor Harold Edgerton experimented with strobe photography, shooting his famous photo entitled Milk Drop Coronet, flash firing 120 times in one second. Diametrically opposed regarding light’s duration, and given that it is now summer, a teacher I know is taking time off to sunbathe beachside for hours on end. She’ll also observe, while hiking in the forest near her beach hideaway, the sun’s morning rays streaking through trees.
Shakespeare wrote often of light. “Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile; so ere you find where light in darkness lies, your light grows dark by losing of your eyes,” he penned in Love’s Labour’s Lost. In the Armenian Church, we speak of Light of Light. Saint Nerses the Gracious wrote in the 1100s of Light of Thy Knowledge. Two hundred years earlier, Saint Gregory of Narek wrote of the Light of Christ as “Dawn that does not dim, sun that does not set.”
During Lent, Armenian priests chant from behind closed curtains about light, while chandeliers are simultaneously and miraculously turned on. Also miraculously, in the Orthodox faith on Holy Saturday before Easter, light in the form of one candle spreads to many others from Jesus’ tomb at the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Artist William Holman Hunt captured the moment in his painting, Miracle of the Holy Fire, at the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge. A catholicos is depicted dead-center among scores in attendance.
Even my metal artist Dad, Abraham, was enchanted with light. He made hundreds of art pieces composed of solid copper, brass, aluminum, stainless steel, wood and plastic. Ironically, they were not lightweight, but heavy, and among them were over a dozen lamps. To this day, over 40 years since his passing, family members still use his light fixtures. We’ve upgraded wires and replaced old incandescent bulbs with more efficient and brighter LEDs, but otherwise, the lamps are as brilliant as when Dad made them for us as gifts.
So Dad, here I am, half a century since you made your useful art pieces, writing for the Armenian Weekly about light and you. I’m accompanying my article with my painting, Light Our World, depicting you inspecting a lamp at your home workbench, with green-painted surfaces groaning from the weight of lamps you created. Spiders and cobwebs that shared the space are long gone, as is the house, for we’ve moved onward and outward. But your spirit, and your beautiful luminaires, remain with us.
Asdvadz hookeed lusavoreh. May God enlighten your soul. Mom’s too.
