You heard a creak outside your bedroom door. Your tiny fingers pulled the blanket closer to your chin. You tried to disappear into the sheets — to shrink to the size of an apple.

You listened, barely breathing. There it was again…creak.

Mom and Dad were on the other side of the house. You were alone. Something was in the hallway waiting for you to go to the bathroom. “Not tonight,” you say to yourself.

Images raced through your mind. They weren’t of a cute little kitten playing with a ball of yarn. It was that ten tentacled monster that slithers along the floor. It must be heavy. That board creaks every time you step on it.

With tightened fingers, you pull the covers up over your head. You curl into a tiny ball. Your body begins to shake — a little bit.

Without light a world of demons and dragons engulfs us.

Don’t think you have a vivid imagination? There’s something about being alone in the dark that makes our mind race at one hundred miles per hour.

In a world of objects, we see nothing without light.

Electronic gizmos make it almost impossible to be in complete darkness anymore. We plug nightlights into hallway outlets. Digital clocks blink the minutes in neon blue. The glowing radiance of a wristwatch creates blessed light that keeps dragons at bay.

Photons from the sun travel tens of millions of miles. They bounce off objects and reflect the world around us. Without these photons, we would live in an eternal world of imagined fear.

Our mind creates the demons of the dark. Our mind also shapes the world we see reflected before us.

What do we see? Do we view the world as it is or the world as we want it to be?

Artists take it one step further, though. They create an interpretation of the reflection they see.

It’s like when you hold a mirror in front of a mirror. You see a reflection in a reflection into an infinite tunnel.

The artist sees a reflection of the world and then interprets it for us, the viewer. We see a double reflection — the world as the artist sees it.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that without art only our imaginings remain. The artist interprets the world and shows us another view — one we may have overlooked.

For those of us who live in chaos, art can bring order. For those of us tyrannized by an ordered life, art can introduce chaos. We need balance – Yin AND Yang. Art brings balance. It makes us whole human beings. It makes us better able to perceive the truth around us.

What’s your perception of the world? We’d love to see it — others would too. Learn how to see the world. Become a master of truth and beauty. Become an artist.