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Inspiration

Intimacy as the Secondary Glow of One Sun, Explained

Ludvig Cimbrelius
Ludvig Cimbrelius
Jul 31, 2019
5 min read

Some ideas arrive as a single sentence and take years to unfold. A short written statement attached to a 2019 track, released by Ludvig Cimbrelius as part of the album Intimacy, does exactly that. It proposes that closeness is not something we build between separate beings, but a faint afterglow of a light too bright to look at directly: the unity that underlies all existence. Because the video itself has no transcript available, this reading rests entirely on the words he published with it, and those words are dense enough to repay slow attention.

Read · 6 sections

What does "the secondary glow" of intimacy actually mean?

The statement opens with a claim about nature. Intimacy, Cimbrelius writes, is "a natural occurrence." He then reaches for an image most of us have seen without thinking about it: "Like water evaporating when the sun warms its surface, the experience of intimacy can be described as the secondary glow of a radiance too bright to experience directly."

The word that carries the weight is secondary. Evaporation is not the sun's energy itself. The sun warms the surface, and water lifts into the air as a consequence. The lifting is real and visible, but it is downstream of something larger. Cimbrelius places the felt experience of intimacy in that same position. When two people feel close, or when a person feels a sudden tenderness toward a stranger, the feeling is not the origin of the connection. It is the sign of a light whose source we cannot look at head-on.

This framing quietly reverses a common assumption. We tend to treat intimacy as an achievement, something to be earned through disclosure, time, or effort. The metaphor suggests something closer to weather: conditions arise, and the surface responds.

Why does the image of one Sun matter so much?

The second paragraph of the statement moves from evaporation to a larger claim. "In essence," he writes, "we are already beyond intimate with all things, dissolving in the perpetual light of one Sun."

"In essence, we are already beyond intimate with all things, dissolving in the perpetual light of one Sun."
— Ludvig Cimbrelius, as published in the video description (2019)

Two words deserve attention here. The first is already. The sentence does not describe a future state we might reach through practice or devotion. It says the condition is present. The second is one. The sun is singular, which means the light that makes one wave glow is the same light that makes another wave glow. Separateness becomes a matter of perspective rather than substance.

The verb dissolving also rewards a second look. Dissolving is not the same as disappearing. Salt in water is still there, but no longer visible as a distinct grain. The image allows for a self that is not erased, only no longer the sealed container it appears to be from the inside.

What is the role of dreams in this picture?

The statement closes with one line: "In dreams, we may feel the glow of its rays."

Cimbrelius does not expand on it, and the restraint is useful. Dreams are a place where ordinary boundaries of self and other tend to loosen, where the usual narrative of who we are becomes less firm. By placing the glow in dreams, he suggests that the radiance is not only a philosophical proposition. It can be sensed, faintly, in experiences that do not depend on daylight logic. The word may matters too. He offers this as a possibility to notice, not a rule to test.

How does this connect to contemplative traditions?

The language of a single underlying unity, with apparent separateness as a surface appearance, will be familiar to readers of nondual and mystical writing across many traditions. The statement itself does not name a lineage, and it would be a mistake to attach one to it. What the text offers is a metaphor and a set of claims, not a method or a doctrine. Readers can take it as a poem, as a description of felt experience, or as a working hypothesis to check against their own moments of closeness.

A practical way to test it is simple. Think of a recent moment when you felt genuinely connected to another person, to an animal, or to a place. Ask whether that feeling seemed to originate in you, or whether it felt more like a warmth arriving from somewhere beyond your control. The metaphor does not require you to settle the question, only to notice which description fits better.

What does the release itself tell us?

The published details are modest. The track comes from the album Intimacy, released July 19, 2019, and the description credits Cimbrelius with writing and producing it. The record was mastered at PITP Studio by zakè (扎克). The cover photograph was taken by Anton Novikov in 2011 in the city of Murmansk, in a forest called "Valley of Comfort." The description links to Novikov's own channel, and it lists the music and photo as separately copyrighted in 2019.

Those facts are worth stating plainly because they are what the record actually offers. Anything beyond them would be speculation about the artist's life, and nothing in the material supports that.

Where to go from here

If the statement has stayed with you, the most direct next step is to listen to the album on its Bandcamp page at ludvigcimbrelius.bandcamp.com/album/intimacy and notice whether the music carries the same sense of a light behind the surface that the words describe. You can also return to the metaphor itself: keep the image of water lifting under sunlight in mind during an ordinary day, and see where you find it. The idea is not a conclusion to adopt but a lens to look through, and the best test is the closeness you already feel.

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Ludvig Cimbrelius
ArtistLudvig Cimbrelius

Ludvig Cimbrelius is a composer who has recorded since 1999 under aliases such as Purl, Eternell and Illuvia and under his own name, making meditative music meant to help listeners…

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IntimacyUnity-consciousnessSecondary-glowNondual-awarenessLudvig-cimbrelius

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Frequently Asked Questions

He compares intimacy to water evaporating when the sun warms its surface, calling the felt experience a secondary glow of a radiance too bright to see directly. The feeling is a consequence of a larger unity, not its source. He describes that unity as underlying all existence.
The phrase suggests that we are already intimate with all things, and that separateness is a matter of perspective rather than substance. The word 'already' signals that this is a present condition, not a future goal. The single sun implies one light behind every apparent individual.
Cimbrelius writes that in dreams, 'we may feel the glow of its rays,' suggesting that the underlying radiance can be sensed in experiences where ordinary boundaries of self loosen. He offers this as a possibility rather than a rule and does not elaborate further.
The published statement is a metaphor and a set of claims about unity and intimacy, not a method or a named doctrine. Its language resembles nondual writing, but the text itself does not name a tradition. Readers can treat it as a poem, a description of experience, or a hypothesis to test.
The album Intimacy was released July 19, 2019, and is available on Bandcamp at ludvigcimbrelius.bandcamp.com/album/intimacy. The video description links to that page. The music is credited to Cimbrelius as writer and producer.
The cover photo was captured by Anton Novikov in 2011 in the city of Murmansk, in a forest called 'Valley of Comfort,' according to the video description. The description credits the photo as separately copyrighted by Novikov in 2019.
The album was mastered at PITP Studio by zakè (扎克), as credited in the video description. The description lists Cimbrelius as writer and producer of the music.

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