Tony Owen – How the Light Gets In

June stretches itself out, and the long days that follow make me think anything is possible. Here in Ireland, at 10 p.m., the darkness keeps its distance. I can still see across this valley and pick out features in the landscape as clear as day, and those few birds that should know better still sing. I look forward to the longest day of the year with the hope that the light it brings will also bring clarity to these troubled times, or at least a good year for blackberries. There is a balance in nature that I never take for granted. With these long days ahead of us, I’m reminded of the darkness the winter brings.

In County Meath, Ireland, in the Boyne Valley, is the Stone Age monument, Newgrange. Deep inside this earthwork is a chamber running straight back for sixty-two feet. This chamber and the narrow passage leading to it are aligned with the rising sun on the morning of the Winter Solstice. Slowly, a beam of light from the sun creeps its way along the passage until it reaches the chamber itself, filling it with light. Ancient builders marked the year by the movement of the sun as they honored the life it could bring. That streak of light acted as if an unseen hand were using a brush to paint its way into the chamber. On the shortest day of the year, if you’re lucky enough to be one of the few people admitted into the chamber, you would experience the hope and joy of what can only be described as a new beginning brought about by a simple beam of light. These Neolithic people focused that light on their future; it became a spotlight and for a mere seventeen minutes, showed what might be possible.

Light brings hope. To focus it subjectively brings clarity and eventual understanding. In the June/July/August 1989 Union News artist Robert Shetterly—who served as President of the Union of Maine Visual Artists for twenty-five years—submitted an essay titled, “Some Thoughts on Edward Hopper’s Light.” In the essay, he talks about Hopper’s use of light and how it played out in his paintings. This excerpt from his essay captures what Hopper might have thought about the people portrayed in his work and how light framed them:

Hopper’s dramatic light is an immobilizing glare into which the people of his painting seem to have moved by choice but are now dazed, transfixed, and cannot choose to move again until night intervenes.

Yes, light can act as an immobilizing glare; it can also act with subtle brilliance by pulling back the curtains and allowing us to see what lies beyond.

Shetterly uses his light to focus on those individuals whose morality and principles are unassailable. His current series of portraits (presently over 280 of them) Americans Who Tell the Truth depicts Americans who have made contributions in support of this fragile democracy of ours. Shine on, Robert!

Not far from our house, there are the ruins of an abandoned settlement. It is maybe a twenty-minute walk up to the top of the hill above us. You would never know of its existence unless you kick the grasses aside, and then you begin to see what’s left of the foundations. I’ve wondered why anyone would build up here, considering the winds we get off the Atlantic below us, yet here must have seemed as good a place as any. Nobody we’ve spoken with knows exactly how old the foundations are. That’s partly due to the fact the older ones around us are passing on, and with it, all that local history, so this gives me no other choice but conjecture. When you stand up here on these foundations and look due west at sunset, the sea beyond shimmers in the light, and as the sun slowly sets, the light from below moves gently up the hill until it reaches the top, halting for just a short moment as if remembering what was once here, then disappearing beyond. Perhaps whoever lived up there understood the need for the last of the day’s light to fall on them, to grab as much light as possible and hold back the darkness for a little longer.

The longest day of 2026 in Ireland will fall on 21 June. At 9:24 a.m., Pat and I and the dog (must take him) will walk up to those old foundation stones on the hill above us and view the valley around. We will look at the sea beyond and think about all those who lived in this place long before us, and we will try our best to make sense of the day. We will face the morning’s light with open arms. After all, what better way to begin?!

Hoping the light finds you all . . .