We have a huge ally in celebrating the Hanukkah and Advent/Christmas themes of Light and the Marvelous (or Miraculous) today. That ally is today’s science.
The late physicist David Bohm defined matter as “frozen light.” Whether frozen light or just very slowly moving light, matter (and our bodies that are matter) is something special.
We now know that for every molecule of light that is matter in the universe there are a billion particles of light that are not matter! This means that we who are light incarnate or light embedded in matter are rare—we are one in a billion! Rejoice! Celebrate! Be amazed! Be grateful! And stand up to all forces and powers that would put matter down or put the body down.
The body is a marvel. The body is a miracle, a wondrous event. You and everyone you encounter is a miracle and a wondrous event.
Far from putting our bodies down or scapegoating matter, blaming matter for our problems as so many Platonists and dualists like St. Augustine have done, we ought to be respecting matter and nourishing it properly.
We should be living lives of healthy respect and care for our bodies demonstrated by the food and drink we take in, and by the exercise and loving expressions we show toward our bodies, and all the other bodies on Earth including Mother Earth herself and all her creatures.
How much of the Climate/Earth crisis we face today is born of bad attitudes toward matter? Blaming matter for the greed, avarice, envy, small-mindedness, that we choose and are taught to choose by our economics and media and consumerist capitalist agenda? Instead of critiquing the choices we make as individuals and as communities?
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, p.151
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner image: Milky Way over mountains. Photo by Brendan Miranda on Unsplash.
Queries for Contemplation
Meditate on “matter as frozen light.” Play with matter as light, light as matter. Mix them. Breathe in matter; breathe out matter. Breathe in Light; breathe out Light. Breathe in Matter and breathe out Light; Breathe in Light and breathe out Matter. What is happening to you, for you and for all beings that live on Earth?
Recommended Reading
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
9 thoughts on “The Marvel of Light, The Miracle of Light”
The transfiguration reflects the glorious brilliance of our light body, which is embodied within our physical bodies, while temporarily here on earth. Many spiritual paths such as Reiki, Eastern religions, Native spirituality and Mystic Spirituality, contain wisdom teachings about the reality of our light body. This light body emits not only the colors of the rainbow, but also this light resonates with the frequency of sound and their harmonious unifying movements. Not only is this light embodied within, but it also extends outward beyond our physical body. We have come to know this light body as the chakras and the auric field.
All of this speaks to me of the new covenant of relationship we have with the living presence and essence of God, the light, sound and movements of the glory of God, whom is the fullness and source of this Divine Light, this Sacred Sound, this Holy Movement of Divine Love, whom is incarnate within us, which is for us, and moving through each one of us all. This is the Original Blessing, Jesus the Christ birthed within the consciousness of humanity, which is the eternal Oneness of who we are. It is this gift given, that we celebrate during Advent and Christmas and all that comes after this… the resurrection… and the ascension… the continuous unfolding, awakening and transformational journey of our being Oned With this Original Blessing.
Jeanette, Thank you for your comment! I love how you have put things succinctly in the following words, “This is the Original Blessing, Jesus the Christ birthed within the consciousness of humanity, which is the eternal Oneness of who we are. It is this gift given, that we celebrate during Advent and Christmas and all that comes after this… the resurrection… and the ascension… the continuous unfolding, awakening and transformational journey of our being Oned With this Original Blessing.” And I would just point out that, not only do the Jews light candles for Hanukkah, and Christians do for Advent, but so do people of African descent in their celebration of Kwanza!
It is quite true that there is no such thing as ‘empty space’ or
‘nothing’. Science makes this clear and what it might lack is made up by our Source.
I find this confusing how in this meditation being shared with us that “matter” is something we should respect and care for, yet in previous meditations, we are told a potential mother should have the right to remove living matter from her body. I do not advocate for abortion and I do advocate that a potential mother has the right to care for her own body-which in my understanding means to care for the “living matter” growing in that body.
May we all learn more about what it means to be surrounded by the love of Divine Presence and to have Divine Presence within us.
Peace and All Good to all.
Francis, I think that the reason for the confusion is because you are trying to take what Matthew says about one thing, and then show how it contradicts something else he said. You are right, and unborn baby is matter, but I think what Matthew was addressing was the tendency to say that matter is evil as did the Gnostic Christians. They said that matter was so evil, that God couldn’t have created it, and so they had a lesser god, whom some called the Demiurge who created matter, but God was so pure that God couldn’t have done it–at least that is how they thought. But we know better. Matter isn’t bad, God created the world from matter and said it was “very good”–that’s original blessing!
I think you should re-read what Matthew has written about abortion both in the DM and in the longer article he is referring to in Conscience magazine. You seem to have missed his point. His point is that good law and good morality are not always the same thing (this is ethics 101 actually). You can be for abortion or against abortion and still want to keep Roe vs Wade in tact. Why? Because there will be abortions and many for very good reasons such as the survival of one’s present family and the health (including mental health) of a mother, especially one already under economic duress; and for victims of incest and rape; etc. Therefore, there will always be abortions and the moral question becomes: How best to minimize the loss of life. In addition, and primarily, no politician or government has the right to tell a woman what she can do with her body. That is between her conscience and her advisors, medical and personal. That is a remnant of patriarchal power-over dynamics between men and women that needs to go.
Our oldest child is an astrophysicist/astronomer (cosmologist). He is also the director of our local university’s new state of the art planetarium. As a man of faith this is his favorite time of year because The Mystery of the Christmas Star is being narrated by him in weekly shows. Divine Light indeed. . .
Wow Patrick! That is sooo cool !!!
I really enjoyed this post on light, especially the meditation on breath at the end. Jeanette Metler, your post was also a pleasure to read. I would love to hear more about the Christmas Star for I have always found this part of the Christmas story so mystical. Thank you.