Breakfast by candlelight
View(s):
Between my fading vision and her longstanding allergies we are up against it every morning. My eyesight is failing and I need the light on in the dining room, but Dayadari is very allergic to bright light in the mornings – sunlight or other. This leads to compromise and attendant unsatisfactory-ness.
And then, in season, we have the flies. So we turn off the light and light candles, which are supposed to keep the flies from the food. But nobody told this to the flies, so a few get their wings singed and hobble around a bit before disappearing (where?).
But the candles lend some character to the breakfast table, wreathed in semi-darkness. The eye is drawn to the flame, almost hypnotically, and the rest of the room shrinks back to the shadows. It’s just like a painting by an Old Master who knew to mimic sunlight through paint, with a spotlight on the action and ironic comments in the shadows.
But the highlight is when the candles are snuffed out. It’s generally still, in the room and, against the surrounding darkness I watch the process. It happens every day and I am fascinated by it, every day. It’s the flame that matters, first. The many-layered flame, bright orangey-yellow, moving with every wayward breeze; a dark heart within; a barely visible flash of bright electric blue where the flame meets the wick
Out goes the flame, but there is yet fire in the wick. At the candle end it glows till the wax congeals and the fuel runs out. Just like in the “gaatha”. At the other end of the wick, up there in the air where the flame has lately been and gone, only ashes remain. So the last of the glow is sandwiched between a tip turning to ashes and a foot congealing in wax.
Then it is gone.
It is now a thread of smoke rising in the almost-but-not-quite quiet air. Straight up at first, then responsive to the slightest movement of the air.
And, as the last of the glow subsides, it becomes a disembodied thing on its own, divorced from the candle. For a second or two it pirouettes gracefully, lazily in the air and then it’s whisked away.
Finis. Kaput. End of story.
It’s my daily dose of meditation. Arise, Come into being, Change. I ponder daily. It is a reminder of Impermanence but, it is also a very pleasing performance. A theatrical performance: “The Flame and the Candle”. Art. Art mimics Life. Life mimics Art.
And what is Life without Death?
Time to clear away the dishes.