Windows of the Soul (Word Wednesday: Glass)

Glass is a fascinating substance. You can see through it. Sometimes, if there is a dark layer on one side it makes a mirror so that you see a reflection. This reflection is always there because glass always reflects some light back. Glass sometimes traps light inside it and this is the basis of fibre optics. Sometimes when ordinary light leaves glass it splits into all the colours of the rainbow. This ability of glass to bend light is used in lenses to make things closer or further away.

Glass is used by us in many ways, decorative art and beads, windows to separate spaces, vessels to hold things such as drinks, glasses so people can read, television screens.... It can be clear or not. One form developed by NASA called dichroic glass is the most highly reflective surface they have been able to create and is used on spaceships and in jewellery. No photo can capture the beauty of dichroic glass as the light plays on it and creates a sparkling rainbow.

Glass is made from silica also known as quartz sand. It is the stuff beaches are made of, melted down and reformed. Quartz is used in microships (I think). But scientifically many substances are glass. Volcanoes make glass known as obsidian. Some things look like glass but I am not sure if they are or not, such as water.

So if eyes are the windows of the soul, what does this really mean? Does it mean they are transparent? That you can see all? Do you always look someone in the eye and see who they really are? No, I don't think so. I think when you look people in the eye you see them as well as a little of yourself reflected back. I think people can lie and deceive and to be able to do this they must use their eyes as mirrors to stop people from seeing their souls.

The eyes are beautiful and useful. They make things appear closer and they can focus to make things clearer. Without them... People who lose an eye are often given glass eyes....

I think children have not learnt to turn their eyes into mirrors. I think most adults have to learn, for to wear your heart on your sleep in this world is a difficult path to travel. Still sometimes when you meet someone and you catch their eye, something is transmitted between two people. Some knowledge, some person you knew in another life, someone destined to be close to us, recognition. Maybe our souls communicate more completely than we are aware of. Maybe we don't listen to our souls enough.

What do my eyes say about me? I have no idea...