Radiant Being
The radiant Stories Collection – No. 3How does it feel to be loved? It feels like slipping into something silky, like slipping into honey, like slipping into a deep breath of fresh air, like slipping into wondrous warmth.
I began my life with my mother’s tender love. Her face was soft, curved, smiling. Her hair was brown, lighter brown in fact. Her smile could render all that was wrong, right again. She made me glow inside.
She wrapped me up in her arms and carried me about like I was her prize. I felt warm in her presence. I felt warm in her presence above and beyond the blankets in which she wrapped me. I felt the presence of her love in a way that I cannot quite explain to you. She was a loving person, to be sure, but it was more than that. She wrapped me in her love like a radiant angel. Her laughter contented me. Her love radiated like a perfume filling a room. There were no words though she spoke softly to me constantly. There was only being – I liked being.
After a year, she died. Being became difficult. I began to look for the radiance. It was hard to find because the love and the presence and the perfume were gone. No one could find her for me. No one could be her for me. So she slept in my soul.
Years passed. There were no words. Only ceaseless yearning. One day in my twenties she appeared in a dream. I woke up and realized that I had been given a deep gift. The gift of my mother’s spirit activated within me. What filled me was her love, radiant, warm, secure. I began to hunt for her again. I wanted to find her spirit. I wanted to live radiantly with her again. In the dream, her spirit was absolutely radiant – just as she had been in my infancy.
I searched the textbooks, but she was not there. I searched the libraries, but she was not there. I searched the afternoon sitting rooms, but she was not there. But sometimes I found her in my children’s faces. I found her in my garden amidst the roses and the iris, the peonies, the hydrangeas, and the lilies. I found her in the quiet moments of meditation in the morning. I found her in the way my husband made me laugh. I found her when the lights were low and the candles were still burning and contentment reigned. I found her when I was looking for something else I had treasured. I found her when I was young and again when I was old.
And when I took up the camera, I found her everywhere. The radiant being I had experienced as a child flowed through me when the camera was in my hands. Hours could go by, and it was as if the day had just begun. Time seemed to stop. The swell of love in my heart just kept building. I found myself loving the wild places. The world was my oyster once again. The rough and the wild were just waiting for me to love them with my camera. The trees, the hills, the mountains, the forests . . . the sea, the deserts, the rivers wide and narrow . . . the stars, the heavens above, fire, rock, and water . . . and each of God’s creatures of the wild . . . each sang their wordless songs to me, each blessed me with love.
Radiant being is a state of mind . . . a state of being . . . a way of being. Radiant being is a way of cradling oneself with love. The way I was loved taught me how to love, taught me how to give love and receive love. There is love that flows endlessly from the soul through the heart and out into the world in ever expanding circles. There are times when I reach for my camera, and the radiance is just there.
