SIBYL MAGAZINE—October 2017/ A Shaft of Light

SIBYL MAGAZINE—October 2017/ A Shaft of Light

A PILGRIM SEEKING TEMPLES

Sandra Mattucci—A Shaft of Light

A cloudy sky, a down feathered blanket stretched outward across the dome above my head to all four corners of the Universe.  I walked under a tapestry such as this on several days of the Camino and I have come to love these ‘clouded’ moments—so solitary and wildly abandoned.  The gray skies cast shadows revealing hidden images tucked in the landscapes ‘in’ between.  During these times of stillness, I envisioned stretches in and between the soul of my being.

Stepping quietly, the only sound I heard was the ‘crackle’ of my foot prints.  I waited and watched knowing it would come, but when?  What was it?  What came?  A shaft of luminous light pierced the seamless aloof sky.  The light, so intense, cast a tunnel reversing the ‘unknowing’ and paving the day allowing the dampened colors to be exposed.  The wait over, but the clouds found another way to cast their shadows.  Trekking in this timeless “unexpected,” I was pushed, pulled and my very breath reshaped.  Then another ray penetrated the vast sky like a contraction followed by numerous other strikes in rapid succession.  What I beheld was a fan spreading out like fingers being stretched—no visible between.  Time became forgotten, inconsequential.  Golden light seeped to touch the earth as my being soaked in warm resplendent hues.  I would not understand if the shadows in my ‘person’ remained unseen, unnoticed.

I am alive in this womb of being.  Cloudy days renew the ‘birthing’ of endless dawnings within.  The embryonic fluids of a life lived have thrust me in the spiraling gestational rhythms of life where every change of season births me anew.  Creation is adorned in all its majesty and I am called to celebrate life around and within me.

The Way opened paths to me that I had not recognized and whose message I did not grasp.  Today I sit—my pen strokes this page as I attempt to convey the lived experience.  How do I relay adequately the beauty revealed in bleak unknowns, in transparent prisms of light which at moments ‘blinded’ my sight until the heavy damp clouds let loose, raining down on me, soaking me with showers heralding a charted path.  Every step—every breath seemed to be a first.  My being embraced the wonder.  My eyes opened seeing life anew.  Each morning as I walk, I am new.  Everything I smell, hear, touch and what ‘touches’ me ever so intimately, I hold never to take for granted what I have been given.  My spirit swells with bliss.  The womb of life bursts yet again.  Reborn am I.

A shaft of light ignites the sky.  A bolt of lightning nothing can hold back strikes.  What will be struck?  A thunderous roar like a band of endless drumming reverberates and shivers ripple down my spine.  I walk, I wait trusting the light will come.  Now I realize I am this light Shining On.

Until November,
Buen ‘BEAM’ Camino