I’ve shared this before – about ten years ago – so I’m hoping you won’t remember!! I’ve been taking a break from writing, and only got back to it this week. But I’ve spent some time going over old notes, old files spilling over with ideas, and snippets and things that caught my attention and seemed worth noting down ‘just in case’. This was one of them. I’m inclined to overthink stuff, and to take a small thing and knit an entire story onto  it, which is how this came about.

I’m a very visual/image-driven person. I am inspired by music and the written or spoken word, yes, but nothing moves me to create more than an image. I create my book covers as inspiration for my stories, and often have covers created for books that won’t see the light of day for ten years. Sometimes if I’m stuck for ideas, I browse through Pixabay, or Shutterstock or Deposit Photos,  or through my own photo albums, virtual and paper. This is what I thought when I saw this image. (actually it was 12 years ago now, I’ve just discovered…Jan 2014)

I look into the flame and imagine…

Candles. Flames. Bobbing gently, like stars reflected in a pond. Shining points. Barely moving. Warm. Sun-bright. Thinning darkness and concentrating it, the surrounding darkness grows smaller, denser, turning on night instead of light. Two candles together, mirroring. Let there be light. Rasp of match. And there was light.

Worship the light, as your ancestors did, for when the light was gone, the herds moved away, the food was gone, the heat, the shelter. You lost everything because there was no light. Pleading with your hand-made gods for just one more spring, another dawn, for the sun to rise again and bring new hope.

Prometheus stole me to illuminate Bede, to shine upon Shakespeare’s moving quill. Does the flame recall their struggles with words, with pages? The artist slaving in his garret, with only a flame to light his way, his hands and pages covered in spent wax, the litter of the revelation.

The questor in the labyrinth. Lighting one step at a time, no more. You move ahead by faith alone. At any moment the light could be snatched from your grasp and where would you be? Alone, in the dark, where the minotaur prowls. You hear its step ever closer, its breath on your cheek in the gloom.

The flame bobbing and dancing shows the presence of evil in your room. We used to tell one another ghost stories by this small light. We decorated our cave walls with the shape of things our dreams told us. Superstition, hand in hand with creativity.

The light on a tomb or grave, don’t let them go into the dark and be forgotten. The candle of prayerfulness and sorrow, of all-night vigils at bedsides, of pain and fear. No relief found in this golden glow. This is too small a point of hope.

Does the candle see me? Is the flame aware of those who cluster moth-close around? I’ve seen it all before. You aren’t the first, you won’t be the last, to be awestruck by my intangible beauty. Flame is eternal, coming down the centuries, the generations, lighting the way for all.

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