Light is the fifth of the seven elements of Solaria’s symbolic system and constitutes its center. The very name of the island derives from the light it receives.
A threshold, not a substance
Light coincides neither with energy nor with matter, and yet it carries energy and marks the boundaries of what is matter and what is not.
It is a field whose energy propagates in the form of photons, somewhat like waves in the sea: energy is a property of the field, always present, but it does not coincide with the field itself, just as the strength of the waves does not coincide with the sea. Photons, being massless, travel at the limiting speed, while the particles that give rise to matter are constrained to lower speeds: the speed of light is thus the boundary that distinguishes what is matter from what is not.
That same speed also structures the relationship between space and time. At the speed of light, time does not flow and space is not traversed: a light born at the dawn of the universe has not aged an instant, and yet it illuminates the present of whoever receives it. Light is the infinite that dwells within the everyday.
For this reason, in Solaria’s symbolic system, light is the quintessence: the principle that holds together space and time, mass and energy, without identifying itself with any of them.
Light and meaning
A second task is entrusted to light: to put consciousness in communication with meaning. It is the threshold through which information becomes awareness, the point at which a message ceases to be an inert sign and becomes understanding.
From this perspective, light is not only the geometric center of the three axes of reality, but the place of passage between the five natural elements and the two elements of meaning, information and consciousness.
Altaluna, the reflected light
Altaluna is the territory that symbolizes the reception of solar rays, which become reflected light, lunar light: hence the name of the island’s central plateau.
In Altaluna lie the seeds of an original, integral light, not yet separated into its opposites: nature and technique, science, spirit and communication coexist there from before being distinguished.
Altaluna functions as a prism. Solaria’s light, passing through it, no longer proceeds in a straight line: it bends, tilts, and differentiates. It does not break, but is translated, and it is in this deviation that human experience as such is born. From this refraction derive the two meridians that describe human experience in itself, that of consciousness and that of information.
Related entries
Seven Elements
Symbolic Meridians
Symbolic Geography
Nuru
Qamar