Seven circles of light explore mortality in this spiritual picture book.
In a fairy-tale–like opening, the Brightest Light lives alone, content, in the Big Quiet. But “one day, a Sharp Desire came…and changed everything.” The Brightest Light, looking like a soft white ball surrounded by darkness, encounters a prism that refracts light into colors. Now, the Brightest Light and seven balls of color live happily until the colors encounter a desire for more. The colors leave the Big Quiet for a world like Earth, becoming plants, animals, forces of nature, and humans. Violet and Red turn into lonely human girls who find each other and become friends, experiencing the strange feeling that they’ve met before. Eventually, the colors realize the time is coming to leave their incarnations and return to the Brightest Light, once again content until the desire for change resurfaces. Lucas does an impressive job of making this philosophical theme feel approachable and grounded. The author’s images vary in style. One resembles a doodle in a digital paint program while the images on the Earth-like world are more detailed cartoon illustrations with full backgrounds and a diverse human cast. Her handling of time passing in a panel-packed page seems natural, and the hints at death feel merely part of a cycle rather than sad.
An engaging conversation starter for parents and children about growth, change, death, and life. —Kirkus Review
It was 30 years ago when Sag Harbor artist Maryann Lucas had a deep awakening. That awakening, all these years later, has manifested itself into a children’s book, “Seven Circles of Light: How They Were Born and What They Became” The self-published book is meant to spark a conversation between parents and children about life, death and finding happiness.
“I was in my 30s when I just had the courage to make myself vulnerable as opposed to be perfect. I found that in my imperfections came true perfections, it was a really real way to be with other people,” Ms. Lucas said.
“I used that notion that in our separateness, we all come from one pure energy,” she added.
In the book, light exists and is lonely. A prism enters and splits the light into the seven colors of the rainbow. But they, too, are lonely, so they enter earth. When they get to earth, two of the colors become little girls.
“I took at scientific truth and I used my imagination to tell the story, and a children’s book gave me the breath to use my imagination,” Ms. Lucas said.
In addition to drawing inspiration from her own personal growth, Ms. Lucas said she was guided by nature and local landscapes. In the book, both of the little girls felt drawn to a park, which is in some ways reminiscent of Mashashimuet Park in Sag Harbor. The book also features a duck pond, the weather, the water, the trees and the rocks.
In the book, egrets play a very important role. Ms. Lucas does not remember egrets on the East End while growing up, but she remembers them showing up about 30 years ago.
Ms. Lucas said the children’s book gave her a way to break through the current negativity of the world and reach out to people with her message.
“I also feel that people are being so critical right now of judging and tearing each other apart and fiction is fiction,” she said. “It felt like a way I could put my thoughts out there and be received.”
“Honestly, I feel like children are open. First of all, I think children are very intelligent and capable of handling big concepts like kindred spirits and healing from nature,” Ms. Lucas added. “I have an enormous respect for the vibrant spirits of children.”
Ms. Lucas hopes that her book will be read to children by someone who loves them and that they are able to talk about their desires and finding their happiness.