Ever observed the way shadows behave in the morning as well as in the evening? They go on and stretch themselves to create a surrealistic impression that seems to emerge straight out of the bower of creativity!
But the thoughts that came knocking when I saw my dawn shadow were not the same as when I watched my dusk shadow.
Me and my shadow -- Photograph by Freda Mans
My shadow evolved as the sun rose… and I helplessly watched it grow with an evolving yearning to touch every pore of existence.And after its limited journey it seemed to happily come back to me and I just went on with the routine of the day until I had forgotten all about it. There was this strange satisfaction that my shadow was with me and that I wasn’t alone.
The shadow at dusk behaved as if it was fed up of me and just wanted to rush out in some kind of unbalanced hurry. Where the morning shadow made me feel powerful and energetic, the dusk shadow dwarfed my existence with its unquenchable desire to move on into a world that lay beyond my vision. It made me feel powerless. A shadow. My own shadow suddenly circled and engulfed me in a darkness that unnerved me.
This feeling, quite unexpectedly, was to undergo yet another surgical transformation as I walked back home. There I found my shadow lurking unsteadily on the wall…
Just want to share a poem on shadows that I had written a few years back:
Shadows on walls
Are ghosts
Only when words wish to put
Fear in our hearts
Or newer definitions of courage
Or the benefits of togetherness
Or antidotes to arrogance.
Shadows on walls
Happen in times of darkness
Sometimes the mind knows there is light
Just a door away
And helplessness hides
All methods of reaching out
Until we learn the secret of shadows.
Shadows on walls
Are lifeless toys
To teach us a thing or two about life.
Shadows on walls
Are life-sucking demons
When the walls are inside our minds.
~Arvind Passey
15 December 2010
Featured image credit: -don-paolo
