This morning, as I settled into my daily meditation period, I considered the flame burning in its small votive-sized vessel. This rests on a small dish I brought back from the Fontainebleau, France, chateau gift shop, illustrating its sublime architecture by an old engraving. The original structure conceived as a mere hunting lodge, it was enlarged over the decades. From the storied, horseshoe stairway, Napoleon bid farewell to his troops before leaving for Elba, forever banished from the motherland. (He escaped and made a triumphant return to fight another day.) Much later, the chateau housed NATO’s Allied Forces Central Europe headquarters. My father’s office was located near the corner of the east wing. As an Air Force officer, he served in France from 1957 to 1961, Cold War days, when missiles pointed towards, and from, the Soviet Union.

A long prelude to an insight and intention. . . As I gazed at the flame, this is what I saw—it has to do with shadow. The dark kind. Our unconscious tendencies. (We also possess what Carl Jung named The Bright Shadow, a discussion for another time.) So, we inhabit these vessels, our bodies. Our spirit burns within us, hopefully informed by goodness and mercy, represented here by candle light. The tin holding the waxy fuel is our container, so to speak. Around the candle, what do you see? The encircling, darkened shadow of that container, right? Beyond the shadow lies the entire Universe, shown here as the rest of the small dish. So much unconscious, subconscious ignorance, or “evil,” if you will, permeates our environs, meaning, our points of view.

It seems to be a necessary consequence of our embodiment that we cast dark shadows. The “physics” of the thing. And learning to be human requires this understanding, that we strive to finally integrate our lesser “angels,” or, at the very least, to recognize/accept our less than desirable traits. That we may change them, i.e., evolve. We find ourselves engaged in a war of ideas the world over because we see poorly. We live, in effect, beside a massive shadow of our own making that may continue to grow in circumference and rigidity until that time we choose to wake up to our own refusal to accept ourselves as flawed. I believe the work of restoration toward wholeness, mercy, and goodness is in sight. Just beyond the curving horizon.

I must believe this in order to see clearly; otherwise, I am lost. May Peace Prevail. Light a candle!