Inside the Spin-Mosaic Studio

I may have been around 5 when I met Willie. Or, should I say, Willie's light. I far preferred the light over Willie or his story.

Nothing but the glow captivated the imagination of my unrealized not-yet-aspiring young artist-heart that I not-yet-was but would later become.

The glow of the flickering flame mesmerized beyond even what the spinning kaleidoscope in my toy box could hope for. The colored-glass spinner had been my favorite mesmerizer...until my eyes caught the light of a certain little flame in an olde nursery rhyme book.

It may have been a humble artist's interpretation; cold, still and unflickering on the page. In my mind it was huge, blazing, warm and enveloping.

In just one small circle of light, the voice of the artist had spoken loud enough for me. Nothing else in the illustration was really needed; according to me. 

Why must these strange words and an even-odder picture be on the same page as this beautiful glow? Just looking at this soft light was...enough...to calm my mind and quiet my childish thoughts into a hush.

Need we the lullabies? Need I the rhyme?

The glow that consumed the dark seemed to possess the power within itself to consume my cares for today and my worries for tomorrow as well.

All else was static. All else was noise.

The piggy-backed alphabet letters lining the page, the cobblestone streets, the nightgown, the birthday hat...only represented my wish for them to be gone...from the page...gone from the reach of the circling light.

Star light, Star bright,

First star I see tonight.

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have this wish I wish tonight.

Strange thoughts for a small girl? Now that I am a mother and have taught 100's of school children, I realize this young longing as my heart's earliest murmer of a preference for peace (and, that was in the 1970's...consider today?).

I remember wishing for a book with an illustration that did not hold the glow captive within the clutter of the town or Willie's hurried and panicked scurry. How much better that would be.  

On this page, within this odd rhyming story, the glow seemed captive for it's function. Without the glow, the hurry and the panic, and the very steps of Willie would not be blanketed in light. Willie would trip. We could not see the clutter, the steps, the cobblestone, the expression, reflections in the windows, or even the towering backdrop of the town itself...without the candle.

Without the light; there would be no story to see or read or...wish away.

The rest of the story I was not fond of. As a child, a shivering haunt raced up my spine with the the sing-song chime. Do you remember?

It was more than the nonsense-ity of a child running through the streets peering in windows to ask if other children were in bed (kinda creepy, no? Why would his mother let him do that?) The lack of fashion-sense also dazzled.

According to the vintage mid-17th-century illustration, a young boy, "wee" Willie, jogs through village streets in his nighty-pajama-gown with high-necked ruffles, shiny buttons from chin to ankle and the point of a weird hat straggling along behind like a stray dog's tail that refuses to catch up with the gate of his own furry jaunting legs.

Did children dress like clowns at bedtime back then?

Noone I knew wore droopy pointed hats like that to bed, much less ever. Except...at birthday parties?

The closest connection my child-mind could make caused my throat to involuntarily restrict and gulp for air. Willie's hat (kind of) resembled the cardboard store-bought plastic-packaged birthday party hats stapled into polka-dotted cones and strung with a good-intentioned, too-tight, under-the-chin elastic string that stung with the kind of jugular tightness that causes giddy sugar-high children to choke on frosted cupcakes.

I knew this from experience.

Because I could not relate to Willie's 17th-Century clothing, I could not relate to Willie...or his odd evening traditions.

I have an ultra-creative friend who lives in Australia. I have witnessed her describe her tiny "wee" grandbaby-girl as wee. Still commonly used in other places with purist English history, the adjective rings quaint here in the U.S., yet remains foreign, but endearing, as related to children.

"Willie" would have been the little boy's first name, most likely a nickname for William. Winkie trails along as the caboose-of-a-last-name, like mine inherited from my husband, Ziebarth.

"Wee Willie Winky" rolls off the tongue like the slurr of my expensive muted blender that grinds my green breakfast smoothies in a rumble of a whisper. I paid good money for the quieter version that doesn't make my heart skip beats in the too-early morning hours. 

The glowing candle light balancing in Willie's hand was a timeless and beautiful icon to Little Me that caused my fingertips to linger longer before turning the page. The glow held my hand captive to the page with the same allure as watching a field of sunflowers wave back and forth in the wind backlit by a noon-day sun. 

I imagined the paper page to be hot to the touch. My small fresh pink fingers avoided nearing the flame. 

I was soon to learn that a man claiming to be the son of God also self-proclaimed to be the light of the world: the light of our stories. I knew what this meant!

I had lingered and loved long within the glow of a small light that filled a page within a book that had been loved for centuries. The black book that the pastor held in his hand had also been around for centuries and seemed to say that he and we had been loved for longer than centuries---since the beginning of time.

"In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shined in darkness; and the darkness could not overcome."  John 1:4,5

I remember these early impressions---the power that light in dark places can evoke---brushed into existence by a 17th Century illustrator with the same boar-hair bristles as I harbor in my art studio today.

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Yesterday afternoon, after working on a certain impressionistic elephant painting for weeks, I added the finishing touch: a black pearl necklace discreetly dangling from her cement-like tree-trunk-ish gray neck embellished by imprinted and india-ink-stained leaves.

Her necklace matched my own--one simple 12 millimeter droplet of translucent black pearl I saved up for and bought for myself at a (bleak, but hopeful) time in my own history when my heart needed to call forth a legacy far stronger than passing down a book of nursery rhymes. My mother's-heart imagined an icon, a symbol, that would remind my daughters to always look for the light in the darkness.

I also needed this reminder for myself.

There are few greater beauties than the pearlescent deep-ocean-green glint as light penetrates the outer surface and bounces back from the delicate, tiny ridge of a rare concentric Tahitian black pearl.

When my paintbrush finished the little pupil-of-a-pearl circle, I stepped back to view it from a distance. It was dull. Disappointing. The pearl was like the unlit wick of a candle...a candle that can light noone's window and will befriend no barefoot night-message-caller.

Reaching into the far corners of my early memories, my fingers turned the years and pages backward until I could feel the oncoming warmth of the hot paper page of Willie's flame. With my boar's-brush paintbrush in hand, a glow began to surround the pearl. Imperfect; but beautiful.

See, this elephant had a story, too. Simply wearing the necklace as a reminder was not enough. The pearl was still dark and black without the light reflecting from it and within it.

Our stories must reflect a light that reflects hope. Our stories must reflect a truer Source of light and perspective than our own memories can muster. Our own rhyming schemes are incomplete and disingenuous. Alone, we can not penetrate even the lightest of darknesses. 

With just a few extra strokes of my paintbrush, the glow emerged around the pearl. The painting was now complete. 

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It is I, who resists sleep. It is I who has a fearful heart sometimes. It is I who is often too quick or too slow to turn the page of a new day. It is I who imagines I will burn my fingers on a flame no hotter than paper.

I fear. Don't we all?

Without his candle, Willie would fall in the night. Without the pearl, my elephant will forget her story. Without the gleam caught by the light, the pearl will not catch and reflect the beauty that has always been.

Without light, what do we have?

Like a field of round yellow sunflowers pointing their heads to a yellow orbed sun, when we linger long, our very image begins to reflect what illuminates our eyes. They face the sun like swaying mirrors. 

Some call this kind of light, mesmerizing---far better than the spinning glass of a colored kaleidoscope. 

Illuminating. Transforming. Saving. 

I have loved this Light for a very very long time. 

Jesus spoke to them, saying,

    “I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness,

    but will have the light of life.”

                                 ---John 8:12

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*See the elephant painting (pre-pearl) HERE.