Garden Variety Wisdom

A Crag is a geographical wonder created by the receding of bitterly cold glaciers, resulting in a deep dark gorge, a gouge in the surface of the Earth, sharp and forbidding. Icy forces shape and shift the ground leaving a gaping open wound. A gap so massive, it seems impossible, that those destined to fall into its maw, may never travel again to the rim.

It seems appropriate somehow, that in this week, when our eyes look to the heavens for a reminder that there is hope for new beginnings, when all seems lost, that we find ourselves once again facing a deep scar in our psyches, and mourning the loss of our global neighbors.

So it is perhaps a time to turn on the lights, to shine sunshine into the darkness, so that the lost, the discouraged, the wounded and the injured,

may find their way up and out of the darkness.

I would like to be a lighthouse emitting a beacon across land and sea.

A message of safe harbor.

A signal to all travelers lost,

foundering on the current,

or stumbling in the darkness,

that there is a way home.

I would shine steadfastly, night after night, through the fog and mist, to remind the solitary wanderer that there is safe passage.

A Morselike code dot dot dot on the horizon,

connecting ship to shore.

Some might find me an annoyance, much too bright a light flooding through their windows, interrupting their sleep, piercing their dreams like the horn of a train, warning, alarming in the still of the night.

Beware.

Take care.

Tread softly.

There is danger nearby.

A light in the darkness, a lantern’s glow, a flashlight beam, a screaming siren, means no harm. On the contrary, it merely leads to shelter. To a safer place. A place to rest. To moor. To tie up loose ends. To set down roots. To be planted, even if temporarily, until the seas calm, the wind changes direction, or the seasons shift with the tides.

To be a light on the horizon is a glorious gift. To steer others to safety is a true calling.

To stand, ever ready, inches from the pounding sea, stoic and brave as the winds wail churning the surf into a boiling frenzy.

This, this is a calling.

To tower up into the sky. To scan and sweep over the deep dark pitch black night and provide a path, an arrow of celestial light today and tomorrow and forever is a a gift of Love.

A heroic art. A guiding light.

I ask you only to do what we do for our children when they awake in the night, unable to sleep for fear of unseen monsters lurking beneath their bed.

Hug them close. Shine a light into the darkness. Send the monsters scurrying back to their shadowy lair, and promise your children that you are on duty, full time, to insure that their futures, their footsteps, will land on firm ground far from the edge of the Crag.

Simply take their hand and climb the stairs of the Lighthouse, until you both can look out to sea, and are no longer afraid. For in the Light of the Horizon, we can see the edge of the Sun as it rises once again, on a New Day.

A Crag