In Shadow and Substance, cloth as a motif and a total eclipse of the sun are metaphors used to suggest the intersection of the spiritual and physical worlds and the moods, emotions, and colorations that these intersections can evoke. Shot on location in India, Nepal, and Houston, Shadow and Substance is an interpretation of Eastern and Western aesthetic traditions and an exploration of the resonances between music, poetry, and image. The images and sounds, estranged from traditional narrative values of television, align more with Percy Shelley’s idea that “poetry is an activity of which a poem is but one of many possible products.”