329
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_37
Chapter 37
The Paradox of Light
37.1 Day One
Day one, God, light, which given the italics under “was good,” suggests that all of
the Christian commentators collectively professed some doubt (as it were, in God’s
mind) as to whether this lightness and darkness combination, morning and evening
side by side, would actually work out.
1
In the older Talmudic Parshah Bereishees,
the first part of the Torah reading, there is no italicized “was.” No expressed doubt
whatsoever that the darkness, the vast emptiness, all required light, precursors to the
Creation.
2
Certainly by all the evidence, biology would confirm that latter proposition. But by such classical mechanics we are at once stricken with the mythopoetic
underpinnings of every allegory, simile, and dialectic afflicting life and its eventual
death. The ecological dynamics are the fodder, of course, of poetry, historical perspective, the cooling balm that comes from shade, especially if you are an Arabian
Oryx. Moonlight gives additional expanse to this rich potentiality in every organism
and across each landscape (Fig. 37.1).
Every celebrated poet has added to the repertoire, from Homer, for whom night
and darkness are invincible, to John Milton, who asks God to explain the transition
from sight to blindness in what must be his most poignant sonnet, “When I Consider
How My Light is Spent.” The poet was himself blind by that time. As Lord Byron
contemplated the darkness throughout the world following the eruption of Mount
Tambora in Indonesia in 1816, and Thomas Hardy’s “weakening eye of day” and
Emily Dickinson’s “….certain Slant of light,” Carl Sandburg’s “dark listening to
dark” or the teenager Dylan Thomas’ debut “Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines,”
1 The First Book Of Moses, Called Genesis 1:3–5, Holy Bible King James Version Containing The
Old And New Testaments, The Christian Science Publishing Society, Boston, Massachusetts, USA,
p. 7.
2 “Bereishit, Genesis, Chapter 1, https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8165/jewish/
Chapter-1.htm, Accessed March 31, 2020.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_37
Chapter 37
The Paradox of Light
37.1 Day One
Day one, God, light, which given the italics under “was good,” suggests that all of
the Christian commentators collectively professed some doubt (as it were, in God’s
mind) as to whether this lightness and darkness combination, morning and evening
side by side, would actually work out.
1
In the older Talmudic Parshah Bereishees,
the first part of the Torah reading, there is no italicized “was.” No expressed doubt
whatsoever that the darkness, the vast emptiness, all required light, precursors to the
Creation.
2
Certainly by all the evidence, biology would confirm that latter proposition. But by such classical mechanics we are at once stricken with the mythopoetic
underpinnings of every allegory, simile, and dialectic afflicting life and its eventual
death. The ecological dynamics are the fodder, of course, of poetry, historical perspective, the cooling balm that comes from shade, especially if you are an Arabian
Oryx. Moonlight gives additional expanse to this rich potentiality in every organism
and across each landscape (Fig. 37.1).
Every celebrated poet has added to the repertoire, from Homer, for whom night
and darkness are invincible, to John Milton, who asks God to explain the transition
from sight to blindness in what must be his most poignant sonnet, “When I Consider
How My Light is Spent.” The poet was himself blind by that time. As Lord Byron
contemplated the darkness throughout the world following the eruption of Mount
Tambora in Indonesia in 1816, and Thomas Hardy’s “weakening eye of day” and
Emily Dickinson’s “….certain Slant of light,” Carl Sandburg’s “dark listening to
dark” or the teenager Dylan Thomas’ debut “Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines,”
1 The First Book Of Moses, Called Genesis 1:3–5, Holy Bible King James Version Containing The
Old And New Testaments, The Christian Science Publishing Society, Boston, Massachusetts, USA,
p. 7.
2 “Bereishit, Genesis, Chapter 1, https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8165/jewish/
Chapter-1.htm, Accessed March 31, 2020.