T. A. Barron
Welcome, everyone. This is Magic & Mountains.
 
Carolyn Hunter
The T. A. Barron Podcast.
 
T. A. Barron
“Make of your life a light.” That quote from Buddha is my favorite quote ever, which is saying a lot. In this episode, we will share a few stories. I’m going to speak about light in all its various forms and read a few passages from my books. And you’ll also get to hear a song performed by Carolyn Hunter. Plus, I’ll also read to you a poem, a love poem that I have never read before in public.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Whoo. That’s a lot for one episode.
 
T. A. Barron
It is just a light throwaway episode. Seriously, there’s so much here to discover. This is going to be a two-part episode.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Wonderful.
 
T. A. Barron
But first, let’s take note of the empowering wording of that quote. It starts with the call to make. Make of your life. So it’s saying you have that ability, that gift, that power. And at the same time, it’s also humble. It doesn’t presume anything about what exactly you choose to do or how you bring a little light into the world. That is your choice. It’s your life. The only question it asks is, will you use it to make a little light?
 
Carolyn Hunter
Make of your life a light.
 
T. A. Barron
Right now, some would object, one life really isn’t much. So what’s the point? And you know that’s not all wrong. In the grand sweep of creation, against the backdrop of the entire cosmos, one life isn’t much. But even so, one life is something. Yes, something precious, something unique. Maybe even something luminous, filled with light. Each and every life matters. So even as small and brief as our lives are, your life matters. And so does mine. T. H. White, one of my favorite authors, put this brilliantly in the final page of his masterpiece, The Once and Future King. He wrote, “The fate of this man or that man was less than a drop, although it was a sparkling one, in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea.”
 
Carolyn Hunter
Gorgeous.
 
T. A. Barron
As I wrote, much less eloquently than Buddha, in my book The Wisdom of Merlin, “All we have — all we have — is our time and our souls.” So why not make the most of both of them? Or, as I wrote in my trilogy about the birth and death of Atlantis, “What matters is not how long our light lasts, but how bright it shines.”
 
In that same sense, or maybe I should say in light of that, the very brevity of life is part of what makes it so special, such a precious gift. This is now. This is our moment. It won’t come again. It’s a gift to us. And while our light continues to shine, however long that might be, it’s also a gift to others in our midst. To the people we love, to our fellow creatures and places we love, to the Earth that sustains us all, to the values we hold most dear.
 
Carolyn Hunter
That’s right.
 
T. A. Barron
A gift. Our mortality, for all of its sorrows and longings and limitations, is in fact our greatest opportunity, our chance to shine. Make of your life a light.
 
[Music Plays]
 
T. A. Barron
The wonderful poet Archibald MacLeish wrote a poem in his 80s about the love he shared with his wife, Ada. Love that remained strong to the end, even though they both knew that, too soon, they would die. In that poem, he compared their love to a candle’s flame. And he wrote, “Love, like light, grows dearer toward the dark.” And I find the key word in that whole line is “dearer”. Because it’s the fragility of it, the transience of it, that makes it all the more precious, all the more beautiful.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Grows dearer toward the dark. Like almost how you get closer together with someone in hard times, in a way?
 
T. A. Barron
Wisely said, that’s so true. And we’ve all been there.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Yeah.
 
T. A. Barron
And also, when you have a sense of the brevity of life, you immediately feel how much more precious it all is. And that’s why it’s important to be kind when you can, be close to someone when you can, express your feelings truly. Live fully. Love well.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Beautiful.

[Music Plays]
 
T. A. Barron
A few years ago, while cross country skiing on a snowy ridge here in Colorado, I came across something surprising, mysterious. Some puzzling marks in the snow. There was a line of tiny paw prints that ran across the ridge. The tracks of some little animal, a mouse or a vole, maybe. And then, inexplicably, the tracks suddenly stopped. Disappeared. Why? I wondered. So I skied over, and looking closer, I noticed, not far away, the marks of something that had brushed the top of the snow. Feathers, I realized, from a pair of mighty wings – an eagle or a hawk or an owl. That bird had swooped down from the sky and snatched that little animal. Ended its life, and carried it off to the bird’s nest to feed its own hungry fledglings. So in that spot on the snowy ridge, there was life and death, all bound up together in the span of a single heartbeat.
 
Moved by that, I wrote a poem about it. It’s called “Death, Soft on the Snow”. And I’d love to read it to you now.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Please.
 
T. A. Barron
“Death, Soft on the Snow.”
 
High on a wintry hill

Snow blows, swirling like a dancer’s dress

made of crystals
sewn with threads of frost.

My skis leave glistening trails,

My breath sparkles like the snow—

I am all alone

on this frozen slope.

Then I see, just ahead,

tiny footprints.

Something small and furry

With a beating heart and quivering whiskers

Scampered here not long ago.

The creature left nothing but these faint marks,

traces that would soon vanish

in the blowing snow.

But no! The footprints end abruptly

With a sudden crash, leaving

A crater in the snow the size of a salad bowl

Marking where that beating heart

Stopped.

Skiing closer, I gaze intently,

hoping to find a clue to what happened here,

Frozen in time and crystals.

With a gasp

I notice, outside the crater,

The lightest brush of parallel lines in the snow:

feathers.

The outermost edge of some great wing—

An eagle, perhaps, or an owl

Who plunged down without warning and plucked

a winter’s meal.

The talons closed tight

Squeezing out every bit of life and tomorrow,

leaving only

A hole in the snow

And the softest touch of feathers

As they flapped

with grace and power

high into the sky.

Almost I could hear

(underneath the wind)

That creature’s shriek of terror

Leaving its mate and burrow behind—

And that bird’s simultaneous shriek of joy

Knowing that, at last,

There would be food

and life

and another

tomorrow.

Buddha once said,

in words that ring forever,

“Make of your Life

a Light.”

A worthy goal, I agree.

Yet even the brightest mortal light

Will fade and finally

die—

With no shine or shadow

that long remains,

Its life as fleeting as the touch of feathers

on windblown snow.

All that matters

All we can know

Is that a light did once shine.

Sturdy and bright at times,

Weak and flickering at times—

For a brief, beautiful moment

it gave

a unique and lustrous glow

to the world.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Gorgeous. Such vivid imagery.
 
T. A. Barron
I can still, as I read it, even now, I can hear the wind swirling around me with snow crystals and spirals of sparkling light around me. And that mystery.
 
Carolyn Hunter
The cycle of life all in that one moment.
 
T. A. Barron
Right. Life and death in a single heartbeat.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Yeah. Beautiful.

[Music Plays]
 
T. A. Barron
Let’s go back to T. H. White for a moment. There is a scene near the end of that book that has always had a special meaning for me. It’s about light and life. In that moment, King Arthur is utterly dejected. He sits alone in his tent, knowing that his battle for Camelot is lost, his roundtable has been destroyed, his love, Guinevere, is gone forever. And his greatest dream, Camelot, a society based on justice, is utterly ruined. Everything he’s done, his whole life, it’s all been for nothing. He sits alone, weeping.

And just then, he notices a young boy holding a torch outside the tent. He calls the boy inside, and he asks roughly, “Boy, why are you here?”

The boy straightens up proudly and announces, “I am here to fight.”

“For what?” asks the king.

“For Camelot,” The boy declares. “Tomorrow I will run into battle and I will fight, and I will die if I must. For Camelot is the one place anywhere where justice and honor still live.”

King Arthur shakes his head. “No. You will not fight.”

“But I want to fight. I want to fight for Camelot.”

“No,” says the king. “This is my command. You will run behind the lines tomorrow. You will live to be an old man. And in your long life, you will tell everyone you meet that for a brief, shining moment, there was a place, an idea called Camelot. And so maybe, in some future time, that place might come alive again.”

The boy still protests, but the king says, “Now, lad, kneel.” And so the boy puts aside his torch and kneels. Before the king. King Arthur tells him, “I shall make you a knight. What is your name, lad?”

And the boy replies, “Tom.”

Nodding, the king takes his sword and taps the boy’s shoulders. “Well now, Tom, the light bringer. Go forth in your life and share that light wherever you go. Tell stories, Tom. Stories that will kindle the same light in the hearts of others.”

Even if T. H. White had given that boy another name, Desmorelda, anything, I would have been moved by that scene. But because he was named Tom, I do confess I might just have felt a little bit of extra inspiration.
 
Carolyn Hunter
How could you not?

[Music Plays]
 
T. A. Barron
Now, let’s talk about that light. What does the word really mean? And what then does it mean, actually, to make your life a light? Well, for starters, it doesn’t mean you need to be a big, huge bonfire seen for miles around or seen from outer space. You do not have to be that, nor do you have to be a super intense spotlight. No, it means just a little bit of light. What we can bring. A small flickering candle flame, a single torch, adding light to a darkened space. Just one little flame burning, small but brave in the darkest night. Sometimes that is all we can do. And the miracle is, sometimes that is what the world needs most.

Mother Teresa was once asked, late in her life, with great admiration and respect, how have you done so many great things? And Mother Teresa responded, “I have done no great things. None. But I have done many small things with great love.”

Carolyn Hunter
Mmm, yeah.

T. A. Barron
The small everyday moments of kindness or listening or helping or creating or caring or speaking out, that is bringing light.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Right. Doing many small things, but with great love.
 
T. A. Barron
One more quality of light deserves mention. Light and dark. Often they appear as opposites, and in many ways they are. But they are also, at the same time, parts of a unified whole. A whole that is all the more wondrous for embracing both. Light and dark define each other. The absence of one means the presence of the other.

For example, stars are only brilliant against the darkness of space. Do you remember where Rhia explains to young Merlin in the first book of The Merlin Saga, as they sit out under the night stars. She sees constellations in the dark places, the places that might seem empty. And in fact, she finds great shapes and inspiration from those dark spaces.

By the way, that’s an idea that I borrowed from the ancient Incans, because they really did see their constellations, where we see only empty spaces. And so light and dark truly embrace each other. You could say they sanctify each other.

[Music Plays]

T. A. Barron
Well, as I think is probably clear to everyone, my whole life as a storyteller, I have been fascinated by light. It’s such a powerful metaphor with such endless variety and subtleties. So I’d like to read to you now some passages from my books that portray light in very different ways.
 
I’ll read a bit from The Heartlight Saga, the Adventures of Kate, from The Atlantis Saga, and of course, from The Merlin Saga. The first selection is from Heartlight book one of The Heartlight Saga, the Adventures of Kate.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Yeah. When I first walked into your writing room, there was this big blue fabric butterfly with a girl and her grandpa riding this big blue butterfly. Where did that come from? And what does heartlight mean?
 
T. A. Barron
What a great question. That blue butterfly that’s on the ceiling of my writing room was a window display in a wonderful bookstore in New York called Books of Wonder. When I did my very first reading of Heartlight and the wonderful writer Madeleine L’ Engle, who was a great friend and inspiration, offered to come and introduce me, and that’s the only reason anybody came. But after the event, they gave me the window display, and ever since, I’ve had it tacked to the ceiling of my writing room.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Gorgeous. I’m always wondering where they’re riding off to.
 
T. A. Barron
Well, in the book Heartlight, twelve-year-old Kate loves to hang out with her grandfather. He’s her best friend, and she is his. Grandfather was a highly acclaimed theoretical physicist, a great scientist, until he started reaching beyond the bounds of what many scientists could tolerate as hard science. And so now he’s somewhat disgraced. But that doesn’t mean anything to Kate. She still loves to hang out with him in his laboratory in the back of their house.
 
As she brings him some fresh oatmeal cookies that she’s just baked, he says, looking at a prism that is just then catching the light from the window and sending rainbow colors all across the walls and ceiling of his laboratory, “You know, life should be like a prism inhaling light, exhaling rainbows.”

Now, Kate doesn’t have a clue what that means, but she nods and takes a bite of oatmeal cookies and hands the rest to Grandfather. Turning toward the cookies, Grandfather takes a bite himself, and then he peers into the distance as if he were looking right through the wall into a faraway world.

“Time for that secret, Kate,” he explains. “Quite by accident, today, I have discovered a way to liberate the part of us that is most similar to light.”

“You mean our souls?” Added Kate, struggling to understand.

“You could call it that,” answered Grandfather. “People have given it many names in many languages across the ages. I call it our heartlight.”

“But how? How does it work?”

“Well, only God knows the answer to that one, Kate, but if you keep asking – ”

“Perhaps He’ll give us a hint!” She finished, grinning. “But what does all this have to do with traveling faster than light? That’s what you were talking about.”

“Everything,” replied Grandfather, taking her hands into his own. “When what I have crafted here in this laboratory is allowed to react with your inner light, your heartlight, then you can instantly travel anywhere in the universe. Yes, faster than light.”

“But I don’t understand how you could travel into outer space without a spaceship to take you there.”

Grandfather’s brow furrowed. “How can I explain this? Think of it like – like your imagination. All you need to do to go someplace in your imagination is to imagine it, right? Then presto, you arrive there faster than light. That’s how heartlight works.”

Kate leaned against the desk in utter amazement. Even if she didn’t understand how all this worked, she finally understood why Grandfather had been working so hard and why he had that triumphant gleam in his eyes this morning. “So is this why you wanted to study the wings of that morpho butterfly?” She asked.

“Yes.” His voice now was almost a whisper. “It was the morpho who gave me the first clue that there is indeed a connection between the nature of light and the nature of the soul.”

“So you’re saying that our souls and the stars and the wings of a butterfly are all somehow connected?”

“Yes,” the old man agreed, nodding thoughtfully. “They are all part of the great Pattern.”

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The only sounds were the humming equipment, the vibrating beakers, and the continuous clattering of everything in the laboratory.

At last, Kate whispered, “If you’re really right about this, and how to free your heartlight to travel anywhere in the universe…”

“Where would you like to go first?” Finished Grandfather. His eyes alight. “Let me show you.”
 
Carolyn Hunter
I want you to keep reading!
 
T. A. Barron
Alright, I’ll give you another little glimpse of what happens. The story does ratchet up in suspense, I will say, just a little bit. The whole universe is at risk, basically, because something terrible happens. In that moment, grandfather and Kate discover that the sun, the source of all the energy to sustain life on Earth, is on the verge of collapse. Something sinister is sapping the inner core of the sun, taking its energy elsewhere in space. And that’s going to leave the sun so unstable it will collapse and then explode and wipe out all life on Earth. Fortunately, they have a lot of time to solve the problem, because if Grandfather’s equipment is right, they have a whole four minutes left before the sun collapses and the Earth is destroyed. Suddenly, to make things worse, Grandfather vanishes. Just disappears. Kate knows, she senses, he is in horrible trouble. And she grabs the key to the heartlight just as an intruder enters the laboratory and lunges for it, hoping against hope that she could somehow help, maybe even save, her beloved Grandfather.

So, like I said, no suspense.
 
So, the instant Kate touched the key to the heartlight, a heavy blue green mist submerged her vision and swirled about her like a cyclone, carrying her into a state of being she had never known before. There was no sound, only motion, motion, motion. Warm electric sensations coursed through her and around her, and she felt lighter, lighter than a bubble on a breeze. Slowly, the blue green color, the same color as the morpho’s wings in grandfather’s collection, began to deepen, to thicken, until strange shapes began to form out of the wisps of mists surrounding her. On either side, Kate could see the shimmering colors solidify into large iridescent platforms. Could they be wings? Then she felt herself seated on the sleek black body with the round head right in front of her, and she knew where she was. Simultaneously, two delicate antennae began to unfurl from the top of the head, quivering with new life.

“A butterfly!” she cried, nearly falling off her perch. “I’m riding a great butterfly!”

As if in answer, the great flashing wings began beating in a mighty rhythm. Kate suddenly felt like a jockey astride a colossal racehorse. But there was no saddle to hold her steady and no bridle to guide her course. She closed her eyes tight. Born on brilliant blue green wings, she rose swiftly through the clouds. Higher and higher she climbed. And when she opened her eyes at last, it was just in time to see a group of snow geese emerging from a lumbering cumulus cloud just ahead. She forced herself to glance downward at the hilly countryside fast receding in the distance.

And so her quest began.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Thank you. I’ve been wondering.
 
T. A. Barron
Now you know why there is a great fabric butterfly on the ceiling of my writing room.
 
Carolyn Hunter
I can’t wait to finish that one.

[Music Plays]
 
T. A. Barron
Now I’m going to read to you from Atlantis Lost, which is book three of The Atlantis Saga. Now in this tale, there is another creature of light. Not a butterfly, but a creature of light and sound, which together makes magical music. Meet the chimewings.
 
Music had always filled her thoughts, even before she was born. During all her months in her mother’s womb, Omarya heard music everywhere. Songs hummed in her still forming ears, danced to the cadence of her mother’s heartbeat and flowed through her young veins. None of which was surprising at all, since Omarya was one of the rarest creatures in the spirit realm of Atlantis, a harmonic chimewing.

The youngest in her family and the first chimewing to be born in many years, her birth inspired great celebration. Spirit creatures came from all across the realm to sing and dance and play wondrous musical instruments in her honor, crowding around the shimmering silver cloud where her family had lived for eons. The joyful music-making lasted several days and assured Omarya that as rich with song as her time in the womb had been, her new life after birth would be even more sonorous, perhaps even more magical.

In the weeks since, she’d been discovering all the ways that she herself could make light and sound and music. For even though she was just a tiny creature resembling a small, beautiful bird, she possessed the special power of all chimewings to make music that swelled and flowed out across the spirit realm, reaching countless distant worlds like rays of light. All it took, Omarya discovered, was a single beat of her iridescent lavender wings. That simple motion produced the sweeping sounds of dozens of violins. Of course, learning how to play those violins in tune would take years of practice. And every time there was a burst of new light and new color that flowed outward from her. Each time she took a breath, in fact, the air rang with the peals of bells and more light and colors. And the merest twitch of one of her antennae made a haunting, flute-like sound that echoed eerily for days. For she combined the magic of music with the magic of light.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Lovely. I want to meet that creature.
 
T. A. Barron
And, you know, just this morning, as the sun was rising here, I heard the growing chorus of songbirds. The robins and the blackbirds all started singing. And that swelled even as the light swelled. So as this beautiful pink and lavender color turning into gold and rays filled the land and the trees, song and music was also filling the air all around us.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Begins with nature, huh? We are mimicking the birds and the sunlight coming up over the horizon as our own stage.
 
T. A. Barron
Right. The original stage.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Yeah, exactly.

[Music Plays]
 
T. A. Barron
And now, allow me to read to you a bit from The Great Tree of Avalon. I’m going to start with book two of that trilogy, which is also book ten of The Merlin Saga. First, a selection showing the widely varied qualities of light. In this section, you’re going to hear about the blazing radiance of a star, as well as the mysterious gleam of a magical creature.

Just by way of background, this book, like all the others in The Great Tree of Avalon trilogy, features Tamwyn, a bumbling wilderness guide. Terribly clumsy, but good of heart. His origins are unclear even to himself, and his name, too, is ambiguous. For Tamwyn means dark flame in the most ancient tongue of Avalon. He wonders, will he bring light into the world or cast it into eternal darkness? Will he be dark or will he be flame? No one knows.

Even so, Tamwyn takes on the greatest quest imaginable. And in this volume, he has committed to doing it, to save the world he loves, the Great Tree of Avalon, and, just maybe, to win the heart of Elli, the banished young priestess he loves more than any other person. Tamwyn vows to try, even if it means his death, which it almost certainly will. For the Great Tree of Avalon is in dire peril, the worst ever. The most revered constellation in the night sky, seven bright stars known as the Wizard Staff that were originally created by the wizard Merlin himself to make a doorway between Avalon and the spirit realm. Those seven stars have suddenly, inexplicably gone out. So the sky is now much darker, as is the future of this magical world.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Let’s hear the passage.
 
T. A. Barron
Tamwyn stepped toward his companions, his bare feet crunching on the snow. He moved slowly but deliberately, still pondering his terrible dream just short of the Stargazing Stone where Elli sat. He stopped and drew a deep breath.

“Well,” he began, trying not to look at her, “I think there’s just one thing to do.”

“Which is?” Probed the crusty old sprite sitting next to Elli. Nuic, his liquid purple eyes locked on Tamwyn.

“Go up there. All the way to the stars.”

“And just what,” demanded the sprite, “would you do if you ever actually reached the stars?”

“Well, I would relight them, restore them somehow. That’s the only way to stop the spirit Rhita Gawr. The only way to save our home.”

“But,” objected Elli, “that’s crazy. No one can do that.”

“Lighting stars is no simple matter, especially for you.”

Still unwilling to look directly at Elli, Tamwyn spoke instead to the sprite. “Look. Long ago, when those same seven stars went dark the first time, back at the Age of Storms, Merlin said it was essential to relight them. And he did find some way to do it, didn’t he?”

“Sure, ” replied Nuic, “but he was -”

“A wizard,” said Tamwyn bitterly, “and I am definitely not, as all of you know. I am just a stupid fool.”

His throat suddenly grew hoarse. “But maybe, maybe, I could still find a way.” He glanced ever so briefly at Elli, “Before it’s too late.”

Elli, blinking the mist from her eyes, watched him in silence.

Shim ambled over, and he shook his white mop of hair. “You is full of madness, lad. Certainly, definitely, absolutely.”

“Maybe so, but I’m convinced it’s the only way to save Avalon.”

“Ha. I think,” declared Nuic, “that you might also have another reason for going.”

Tamwyn swallowed. “Yes, old one. You’re right. I also want to try to find my father. Maybe I can find him somewhere between here and the stars.”

“Humph,” said Nuic. “Or at least his torch, his precious torch, said to have been a gift from Merlin himself. Krystallus carried it everywhere on all his expeditions around Avalon.” Nuic’s black color rippled with a bit of red. “I heard him say once that the torch would never go out until the moment he died.”

Tamwyn started to speak, and then he froze. He stood as still as the snow frosted rocks all around, his expression one of utter surprise. For someone else was approaching the companions, someone Tamwyn recognized instantly from the songs of bards. Not in all his years of trekking had Tamwyn ever expected to see this creature, for the bards, with good reason, called her the most elusive beauty in all the lands.

This was the sight of a lifetime, a creature more legend than reality. It was the Sapphire Unicorn. Through all the ages of Avalon, there had been only one, only one of her kind. She loped up the steep slope to the summit with the ease of a gentle wind. Her head held high, her hooves kicking up puffs of sparkling snow. Her horn glowed lustrous blue, as did her fetlocks, her mane, and her flowing tail. Powerful thigh muscles flexed as she bounded over the drifts. It was her eyes, though, that most arrested Tamwyn. Deep as an endless slice of sky they were, and just as blue. And there was something old about them, as old, it seemed, as the great tree of Avalon itself. They seemed to shine with the sorrows and hopes and longings of all living creatures, and yet they gleamed with newness, too, as vibrant as the first rays of light from a newborn star.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Magical.
 
T. A. Barron
Yeah. And let’s appreciate that different quality of light that’s in the unicorn’s horn and eyes. It’s subtle, right? It’s mysterious. Have you ever seen moonlight through mist?
 
Carolyn Hunter
Yes.
 
T. A. Barron
It’s like that.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Mm-hum. Beautiful.

T. A. Barron
Magical light.

Carolyn Hunter
Yeah. Hard to put into words, but you did well.
 
T. A. Barron
I gave it a try. So – would you like to find out what happens to those darkened stars of Avalon?
 
Carolyn Hunter
Yes, of course.
 
T. A. Barron
Well, you’ll get your wish. You will find out in part two of this episode.
 
Carolyn Hunter
Can’t wait.
 
T. A. Barron
And it will also include that song that you’re going to share with us, Carolyn. Oh, it’s going to be wonderful. I know. I can’t wait to share it with folks out there. And it will also include that love poem that I promised.
 
T. A. Barron
To everyone out there, let me just say thank you so much for joining us for Magic & Mountains. We’ll see you next week. And in the meantime, may you have magical days.
 
Carolyn Hunter
We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of Magic & Mountains: The T. A. Barron Podcast. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a five-star review, and share this podcast with your family and friends. For more information and to find all of T.A.’s books, visit tabarron.com. Have a magical week.