Lens flare or divine light?

“It’s lens flare,” says the scientist. “It’s synchronicity,” says the mystic. “It’s divine,” says the shaman. “It’s alchemy,” says the alchemist. “It belongs in the fifth chapter,” says the author. “Let’s see what my dreams make of this,” says the dream analyst.

That’s me: scientist, mystic, shaman, alchemist, author, and dream analyst, though probably not in that order. And that’s me in picture, taken by a Samsung smartphone, under the lemon tree in our garden last week. But what is the light that found its way into the shot?

It’s the backstory that sends tingles up the spine, whatever the source of the light, and that’s why the photographer, Karyn MacDonald, leapt back when she looked at the image moments after taking the shot.

When Karyn and her business partner, Cordelia Vecchio, arrived at my house for the photoshoot, I invited them to scout the place for locations and props, and began by showing them my basket of eggs, thinking they’d make an interesting photo. I had stories to tell about those stone eggs, and thought a photo or two would come in handy.

I collected the egg-shaped pebbles several decades ago when I was pregnant with my first child, my daughter Rowan. We were holidaying in the Orkney Islands, a small archipelago off the north coast of Scotland, and I wanted to take something of Orkney home with me, more than a memento, more of a totem or connection to the magical energy I had felt around the Orkneys from the very first time I had visited the place a few years before. I am not a hoarder or a great collector. I keep some mementos and I love being surrounded by beautiful things, but I live quite lightly. I have lived on four continents and moved house more times than I can count, but those pebble eggs are still with me, and always placed somewhere prominent in my home.

“How about these as a prop?” I said to Cordelia, “They’re stone eggs from Orkney, and the basket they’re in is an Orkney basket, a weave specific to those islands.”

“Karyn’s ancestors are from Orkney,” said Cordelia. Now, for Cordelia to know this about Karyn shows how important the connection is to Karyn. It’s a story she tells, something her close friends know about her.

Here we were, in Australia, about as far away from Orkney as you can get, talking about a group of islands with a current population of around 20,000 people.

“My family history traces back to the 1700s in Orkney,” added Karyn.

What was the population back in the 1765 when Karyn’s ancestor, John Old Tufta Flett, lived in the ancient capital of Birsay? Surely much smaller than 20,000? What were the chances of Karyn discovering that I treasure something that connects to something she treasures about her family?

I’m not going to reveal the whole story here, as it’s finding its way into my new book, adding to the piece I have already written about my basket of stone eggs and their significance. But I am going to share some more on the way to exploring the light that found its way into the photo.

I knew Karyn from yoga, and then, one evening, we got to talk a little more at a party. She was excited to tell me that she was reading a book by Michael Newton about past lives, and wondered how I saw dreams fitting into that. I told her that a good friend of mine trained in that author’s institute, and that my friend was working with the author to write a follow-up book. Not only that, but the friend’s husband was staying with us as a houseguest. Not only that, but the friend had asked me to volunteer to be regressed into a past life to build her experience while she was training. (Yes, some of you may also know that my maiden name was Newton, but there’s no family connection there that I know of.)

So when Karyn looked at my Orkney basket of stone eggs and contemplated my story about my feelings of magical connection with the Orkneys and her family history connecting back to the islands, and put it together with her interest in past lives, she got the goosebumps.

Can you imagine, then, how she felt when she looked at that photo and saw something that she hadn’t seen down the lens when she took the shot?

For my part, what was happening when the picture was taken?

There were two shots, one of me looking at the smartphone camera, and this one, and the mystery light is in both. In this one I was directed to look up to my left. There was a plane flying very high in the sky, so I watched that, all silvery sparkles in the sunlight. In both shots, unbeknown to Karyn, I was focussed on offering her the basket of eggs, energetically speaking, as an Orkney connection to whatever she needed in that moment. So I was suitably moved by the appearance of the light too.

The moment was so meaningful to Karyn and Cordelia that, although they’re both experienced photographers, they perceived orbs, not lens flare.

The moment was so meaningful to me that, although I am also a scientist, I was more consumed by a burst of deeper insight into the significance of my basket of eggs and my new book than by the physics of the light in the photo. (You’ll need to wait for the book for more on that!)

Synchronicity was at play that day, and then, that night, my dreams worked at processing these experiences and the questions.

One of my dream images was a pear tree in full blossom, stunningly beautiful. I was admiring the tree when I looked through it to see a string of twinkling fairy lights looped across the window of the house behind the tree. Now, I have always called them fairy lights, but you may know them by a different name. They’re tiny party lights, often strung in trees or around balconies and verandas.

The rest of my dream was enlightening on all levels, but this one image is enough for here and now. In my book, there’s also a story about a pear tree, and it’s in the telling of the story of the pear tree that I connect back to that Orkney basket of eggs. The photo had been taken under a lemon tree in our garden, but the occasion linked me back to a pear tree in another garden I once called home. That pear tree was not just a pear tree. It was a famous pear tree, and one that … sorry, that story’s saved for the book too. Suffice to say, that pear tree, and the synchronicities around it, significantly shaped my understanding of life and its mysteries way back then.

Back to my dream, how beautifully my dreaming mind represented the light as a blend of science and magic: a string of electric lights known as – and dancing as – fairy lights.

What is more beautiful than nature itself? What can beat a pear tree in full blossom on a spring day? Or a lemon tree to shade a basket of pebbles from an Orkney beach? Or a shaft of sunlight glinting into a smartphone lens and causing lens flare that looks like fairy lights or angel rays?

And what of the beauty we intuit but cannot see, the beauty that lays behind nature, the fairy lights behind the pear tree, the interconnection of all people and all things, the spiritual nature of our being, the meaningful but sometimes mysterious pattern behind it all, the hand of the divine that shifted the Samsung smartphone ever so slightly so that the ray of sunlight would bounce just so and cause the ray of light to appear in the picture and jolt new awareness for me, for Karyn, for Cordelia, perhaps now for you?

When is lens flare just lens flare? When is it so much more?

PS

I posted this picture to Facebook (Facebook Business Page, Facebook), Twitter, and Instagram before I wrote this blog. Here are some of the comments posted there:

“A Hand of God moment. I have had some in my Life. SWEET” (Marilyn, FB)

“Things like this fill me with hope and strengthen my faith! Beautiful.” (Denise, FB)

“You have an orb, Jane Teresa – no lens flare – let the @SPR1882 know so they can add it to their files.” (Jessica Adams, Astrologer, Twitter)

“I have shots taken in a restaurant, at night with similar light, striking down on me. I’d love to know what it’s deemed as, Jane.” (Linda, FB) and “Light strikes similar to yours, on 3-4 photos. I was sent one with a lil’ ray veering off RHS. I have orbs, taken years back, whilst on stage and when you zoom in, various things can be seen within.” (Linda, FB)

“Is it from the Sun?” (Carolyn, FB)

“Definitely lens flare, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be meaningful too. It’s certainly very impressive that it’s a single beam and lands right in your basket!” (Alison, photographer)

 

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