Glowing Lights – by Diana Moura

There was a feeling in the air that night, something in the air that driving strait to the lungs, cold, snowy, but mostly fresh and empty, empty of reason perhaps. Empty of gilt, empty of past. There was something in the air that night that made it float straight through the blood renewing it. Making it lighter, driving it through every inch of skin, impregnating the will of men so that the legs moved without reason, so that the arms of men and women alike felt not numb with the cold of night but impregnated with its whiteness. With the colorful sky for it was made of stars. And in the stars, in the vastness of a sky that is always pure because it is untouched, because it is as empty as nothingness as empty as the vast field with a burning fire, in those stars were put the hopes of men and women. And children. One must never forget the children.

The children with their genuine voices and powerful will would look at the stars and choose their destinies. They would look and struggle for a bright space in the emptiness of that dark sky. Up north, the children would lay upon the white ground tired of the snow, perhaps tired of the inflicting cold that arose. But perhaps they were so lost within their wishes warming their hands by the fire and setting their eyes in one thing only, the vastness of the sky. Perhaps they were so lost within themselves that they noticed not the cold of winter days. Down south, children struggled with the dry air. Hopping for a breeze, hoping for a shadow to rest their heads, and as night set upon them they would feel a lightness in the air, a brightness glowing in the skies for the same stars arose. And all there, together with their thoughts under the vastness of the same sky they struggled with the lack of space, with the lack of words known yet to describe it. As if a flower had no space to be her own, as if when being born she had to choose between black or white, not being able to have its own color. As a little star that for having been born in this place called earth could not indeed glow. As a little star condemned to keep its strength unknown to herself, condemn to live her life unknowing that at every step of her existence something might indeed change. That at every step she would take, at every inch she would grow, life would no more take its known course but change and renew itself at every moment, at every step.

These children, as little stars that were born on the earth under the sky, little stars that could indeed not glow for fear of putting out the darkness of the world. They were all silent that night, from north to south they lay silently whether by the fire, whether laying in the shadow, but all them silently with their hands occupied by what was taught to them. Their hands being from the earth could themselves not dare look at the sky, they would warm themselves on the fire; they would help carry the water in, but never look at the sky. The hands did as the father said, as the mother ordered, it were always the eyes that were the doors to freedom. Even when the legs could not run imprisoned by men’s rules, even when the glowing star had gone dark, by fear. By the characteristic fear that fed the darkness, that suddenly imprisoned the flowers that would not grow.

That day all the children set eyes on the sky because they could feel how the air was lighter how the wind blowed softly, and as they looked to their favorite star they could see, they could finally see that glowing star moving and moving and moving.. and as all the children draw a line in the sky pointing their fingers in the air, they could see it closer, they could see how the brightness was stronger and stronger and at every second closer. It flew through the vastness that goes from here to the furthest star. And as it came the darkness, frightened and weak, made space on the earth. It flew from here to there hiding in corners, leaving the fields clean and empty so that the flowers could grow again. As the children drawn the line in the air, it felt warmer. And they did not know what was happening, until now no one really knows. It is said that the precise moment when the line hit the earth with all its light a baby was born. It is said that his head came out and cried at that moment and so the light, strong as it was impregnated the body fully, changing it into something different. But some say; that the lightness never entered that one body, that when hitting the earth, pure as it was, it felt that in the corners everywhere a little darkness resided. It felt that in every inch of ground there was a women or a man suffering from their own evil, so as pure as it was, the light drew north. Faster and faster floating through the lightness in the air, guided by the northern star, it soon arrived at the north pole, where it still resides today. With all its pureness, far away from men’s evil thoughts, it is still there as pure and bright as the day it arrived centuries ago. It is there in the silence of things, and because it is there the snow is whiter and it has this certain glow that soon impregnates the skin with its silence. It is even said that it is there so that men can finally reconcile with their glowing star. So once a year it is remembered that everything is possible and that everyone has some light within even when it all appears to be just plain dark in shadows of fear. That was how Christmas was born, and that is why, every year at Christmas everyone’s eyes are set on the stars.