Sunday, March 11, 2007

Lighthouse Means Stay Away

Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology can usually be counted on for a quasi-oracular, semi-poetic, tie-dyed trip through the metaphor. This week, my horoscope asks me to consider what in my life is acting like a lighthouse. And I began to wonder what a lighthouse acts like.

Citing the poem Treasure Island by Keith Althaus, Rob suggests that lighthouses are not just beacons of safety, but beacons of danger.

So, lighthouses aren't really telling you to "come here," they are telling you to stay away from the rocks, get back from the sand bar, stay off the shoals. You don't go to lighthouses. But if you're lost in the fog, don't you want to?

Blogger Dear Elena has something to say about lighthouses, quoting Stephen Covey's story of a ship on unalterable course warning off a smaller boat, only to learn that it is a lighthouse that must be avoided. His point is to avoid those things that can't be changed. As I read through his other posts, I realize that his blog begins immediately following the death of his six year old daughter. It feels unbearably personal. What is this phenomenon where people cast their words out into the world, so small in the vast Internet, like pennies too small to ripple in the ocean? And yet, here I am reading his words, and wondering about his loss and his life, which is thrown into relief by the passing beams of his posts.

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