Rose Window Media: What happens when light passes through our stories

Rohini Drake

There’s an image that has been helping me make sense of my work and has become the name of our production company.

A rose window.

If you’ve ever stood inside a cathedral and looked up at one, you know the feeling. The glass is intricate, layered, full of color. Each piece on its own is interesting, maybe even beautiful. But it’s not until the light comes through that everything changes.

The colors shift. The patterns come alive. The whole space is transformed. It’s not just the window anymore. It’s what the light does through it. That’s the image I keep coming back to when I think about what we’re doing.

There are a lot of ways to describe collective work. People talk about tapestries. About weaving. About bringing voices together. And I think those metaphors are helpful, but they don’t quite get at what I’m experiencing. Because simply gathering stories isn’t enough.

You can collect voices. You can group ideas. You can put people in the same space. And still, something can feel flat. The rose window reminds me that it’s not just about what is gathered. It’s about what happens when something moves through it.

Light.

Without it, the window is just glass. With it, something new is created—something that didn’t exist before.

What I’m beginning to understand is that this work is not just about telling stories. It’s about how stories are held, shaped, and shared so that something larger can emerge. Some voices haven’t been heard. Some ideas haven’t been explored. Some people carry insight, wisdom, and lived experience that hasn’t been fully seen.

And when those voices are brought together with care. When they are listened to, respected, and thoughtfully presented, it creates the possibility for something more. Not just information, but meaning, connection, or even transformation. It’s like the light doesn’t belong to any one piece of glass. And the image doesn’t come from any one story.

It only happens together.

Media as a Kind of Sacred Space

I’ve also started to think differently about where this happens. Historically, the rose window lived in a cathedral—a clearly defined sacred space. But that’s not where most people encounter meaning today. Now it might be your phone, living room, car, or pair of headphones.

The spaces have shifted. But the need hasn’t. People are still looking for something that helps them make sense of their lives. Something that connects them to something deeper. Something that feels true.

And so the question becomes, what does it look like to create spaces, digital or physical, where that kind of illumination can happen?

Not just content to consume. But something that invites reflection. Something that holds weight. Something that feels like it was made with care.

One of the things that keeps coming up for me is respect. When someone shares their story, their perspective, their lived experience—that’s not a small thing. It carries weight. And I think people can feel the difference between something that was captured casually and something that was created intentionally.

There’s a difference between:

“Let me just grab this video quickly,” and “We made space for this because it matters.”

That difference shows up in how something is filmed, edited, or shared. It shows up in whether the person feels seen. And whether the audience can feel that they were seen. To me, that’s part of the work. Not just gathering voices, but honoring them.

Another part of the rose window that stays with me is the color. It’s not meant to be one thing. It’s not one perspective, one tradition, one way of understanding the world. It’s many.

Different stories. Different backgrounds. Different ways of naming what is sacred.

And when those differences are held together, not flattened, not forced into sameness, but allowed to remain distinct—something richer happens. The light doesn’t erase the differences. It reveals them. And somehow, that makes the whole image more beautiful.

I think what I’m learning is that this work is both simple and complex. Simple, because at its core it’s about listening, gathering, and sharing. Complex, because how we do that changes everything. It’s not just about having something to say. It’s about creating the conditions where what is said can actually be received.

Where people can see it. Feel it. Engage with it. Where light can pass through.

I don’t know that I have this figured out. But I do know that I’m starting to see things differently. I’m paying more attention to what’s being illuminated and what isn’t. To what feels flat and what feels alive. To where light seems to be moving and where it feels blocked.

And I’m wondering, what would it look like for more of us to think this way? To not just ask what stories are being told, but how they are being held. To not just gather voices, but create something where those voices, together, can become more than they were on their own.

Something like a window. Something like light passing through. Something that helps us see.