Friday, July 24, 2020

The pearl of great price (Annie Dillard)

  The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price.  If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all.  But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought.  The literature of illumination reveals this above all:  although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise…. I cannot cause light; the most I can do I try to put myself in the path of its beam.  It is possible, in deep space, to sail on a solar wind.  Light, be it particle or wave, has force:  you rig a giant sail and go.  The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind.  Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, translucent, broadside to the merest puff.
--Annie Dillard               





Image source 1:  
Image source 2:  Andrzej Mirecki, Solar Sail,

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