Let There Be Light!

I learned recently in my prenatal yoga class that the word "guru" in yoga means to move from darkness to light.  The implied use of the word in class was that our new baby will be a guru for us since children are such a joy that they can take you from being sad or depressed to a state of blissful happiness.  I'm not sure that I buy this particular application for the word but I can certainly see a baby being a guru in the sense that he/she will take you from the darkness of a good night's sleep to the light required to see when you get up every two hours during the night to breastfeed.

Reflecting back on the week, we have had a few other guru moments where we moved from darkness to light.  The first was when Avery the Chameleon's incandescent heat lamp burnt out.  All reptiles regulate their body temperature externally.  Some reptiles do this by absorbing heat from rocks, whereas chameleons prefer to bask under a heat lamp.  They need the heat to digest their food and absorb nutrients, keep their skin and eyes healthy and be overall happy creatures.  Avery was extremely unhappy when her light burnt out.  She turned her skin completely black and refused to move until I had gone to the pet store, purchased a new heat lamp and installed it above her terrarium.  Once the lights were back on, Avery came out, turned herself a nice greeny tan and was once again a happy creature.

Black coloured, sad Avery hiding in the dark because her old heat lamp burnt out.

Green coloured, happy Avery basking in the light of new heat lamp.

Our second guru moment was when Ian decided that the front of our main house needed sprucing up for the holiday season.  Both our neighbours, Alan and George, have great Christmas lights.  Their houses are lit up like the Griswold's in a National Lampoon's Christmas.   This year, Ian decided he was tired of our house looking like the poor cousin on the street and so added a whole bunch more lights to the whole bunch that were still up from last year.  It doesn't seem to matter how many Christmas lights we put up on our house though, it never looks like enough. We have hundreds of lights up now but I think we have so much distance to cover that we actually need thousands or even millions of lights if we are ever going to get the "Wow Factor".  Unfortunately, Christmas lights are expensive and we have maxed out our light budget for this year.  The house does look more festive than previous years, but lucky for us we still have the next 40 years to add a few more strands of lights each year.  Ian's mission is that one day our house will rival the Griswold's - though I have a feeling that at this rate it may well take us until the day we die. :)