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 force of waves does not coincide with the sea. Photons, being massless, travel at the limit velocity, while the particles that give rise to matter are constrained to lower velocities: the speed of light is thus the boundary that distinguishes what is matter from what is not.
Light at the center of the matter-energy axis: it carries energy without being matter.
That same velocity 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 a single instant, and yet it illuminates the present of whoever receives it. Light is the infinite that dwells within the everyday.
Light at the center of the space-time axis: at its speed, time does not flow and space is not traversed.
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
Light is entrusted with a second task: 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 inert sign and becomes understanding.
From this perspective, light is not only the geometric center of the three axes of reality, but also the point 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, whole light, not yet separated into its opposites: nature and technology, science, spirit and communication coexist there before being distinguished.
Altaluna functions like a prism. The light of Solaria, passing through it, no longer proceeds in a straight line: it bends, it inclines, it differentiates. It does not break, but translates itself, 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