I have a collection of kaleidoscopes.
That is, I wish I had a collection of them. There are exactly two, beautifully handcrafted, in my home. They are both from the Pacific Northwest, made by artisans in Alaska and Washington.
My hands caressed a silky, earthy one, turned by a woodworker in North Carolina years ago; that one never made it home with me.
It is no mistake that the two I have were made in a place I lived for many years, dark and chilly and moist and deliciously verdant; these scopes offer color and brilliant light that swirl in shapes and textures I cannot predict. I so very much needed their gifts in that lush wonderland of nighttime.
I looked at the sunny garden yesterday.
There are kaleidoscopes here, too. (Or are they fractals?)
I realized that my cell phone's tiny camera lens just roughly equals the eyepiece opening on my kaleidoscopes, and that I could actually capture a reasonable likeness of the beautiful guts of my scopes with a small amount of patient figuring.
In our garden sits a green bowl that just yesterday gorgeously reflected the yellow wildflowers; it seemed to twinkle and dance as I gazed at it with "soft eyes."
It is such a simple thing:
A few mirrors.
Multihued shapes.
A dark shaft bookmarked by a tiny viewing hole on one end and a larger opening out onto the world of light on the other.
There is no end to the image-possibility.
If we keep our eyes open to the light, looking through darkness to the beauty that emerges at the far end, we can remember to imagine big:
For what textures, colors, shapes do you yearn?
Does your heart call for passion, or compassion?
Peace?
Hope?
Relief?
Freedom? Well-being?
Imagine big. And then bigger still.
I really don't feel that a tiny collection of two is too insubstantial to offer sustaining energy toward that which stirs within.
May your hugest imaginings flourish...
All blog images created and/or photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
