Let There Be Light...

The following is an excerpt from the day book by Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening, from April 27th.

It is beautifully written, and there is little that I can add to it. It serves as an inspiration and a valuable reminder to me perhaps it will do the same to some of you out there. If you like it, perhaps you can consider to pick up his book. I was grateful that a colleague introduced it to me more than a year ago, and I still return to it.  Jean

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 Let There Be Light
“Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“When Edison was discovering the light bulb, he first engaged in a process of envisioning how an unseeable current of energy could be harnessed and turned into light. Like most of us, the vision came out first. Once he understood what came to him, it took quite some time to find the precise material that would work as a filament in the bulb itself...

Later, when asked if he ever grew discouraged or thought he was wasting his time, Edison said no, he learned something important each time he tried. he learned that there was another material not to be used.

The lessons here are very telling and transferable, especially to how we seek our calling in the world and to how we seek out love. To be willing to envision what we need is powerful and real, and just as crucial is the confidence of spirit to know that it will work, even though we haven’t found where we belong or whom to love yet. Equally as vital is the perseverance in trying to find precisely what will work.

But perhaps the most inspiring part of Edison’s journey is how he didn’t view his many attempts as any type of failure on his part, but rather as an inevitable part of the process of discovery.

Finally, after all this, we are challenged…to use what we discover and live in the light.”

Note: I suggest not to get lost in the debate of whether Edison invented the light bulb first or that he improved upon the concepts of those before him to make the first practical and commercially viable solution… it takes away from the tireless effort that he and other inventors have invested to achieve their visions… Jean