Beacon through the Mist

“The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,
And on its outer point, some miles away,
The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.”
(excerpt from The Lighthouse by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

With schools closed for the holiday break, free hours were taken by impromptu walks, daytime exploration of the countryside with abandoned buildings or simple hanging out at the family homestead. During their trip to the small harbour while accompanying Grandpa was their exploration of the abandoned building standing tall amidst the rocks across the coastline. Being near my workplace, I had agreed to pick up the kids after office hours, their volley of shouts and play in the lighthouse tower brought to mind, the stories and experiences seen and held in those strong bricks.

“To be a lighthouse, you must be strong enough to resist every kind of storm, to every kind of loneliness and you must have a powerful light inside you!” Mehmet Murat Ildan

What had initially started as fires built on hilltops to guide the mariners had later lead to attempts to increase the visibility of the fire by placing it on a platform. Thereby, the ancient lighthouses were built functioning both as entrance markers to ports and as warning signal for reefs and promontories. As per the Homeric legend, Palamedes of Nafplio invented the first lighthouse, attested by the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the Colossus of Rhodes. Although records show that Themistocles had earlier established a lighthouse at the harbor of Piraeus connected to Athens in the 5th century BC, essentially a small stone column with a fire beacon.

These on passing by the abandoned lighthouse that falls on my regular route, one tends to contemplate of the stories, the secrets, the experiences and the storms witnessed by that solitary tower. Those ships who had seen that light during the downpour and storms, or the bright yellow directing the way across the hazy air around them. With advanced communications and signalling, lighthouse may feel to be a thing of the past. Yet the reality depends on the place. Even today, it may be the strong beacon of light which guides the seafarers through the treacherous rocks, as compared to the radio signals which may be more lost than found in the storm.

Each of our lives echo the effect of the lighthouse, standing lone but independent and strong, felt similarly at certain points in our lives. As long as one decides to stay true and do their best in every situation, their very lives will be the beacon of hope and throw light to dispel the darkness and gloom surrounding those who watch them. No lighthouse blasts away their name, but by being just there as themselves in those crucial points help to steer away major loss and disaster. Instead, their beacon of light shows the way out through those difficult hours.

“We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining- they just shine.” Dwight L. Moody

On the Lighthouse at Antibes
by Mathilde Blind

A stormy light of sunset glows and glares
Between two banks of cloud, and o’er the brine
Thy fair lamp on the sky’s carnation line
Alone on the lone promontory flares:

Friend of the Fisher who at nightfall fares
Where lurk false reefs masked by the hyaline
Of dimpling waves, within whose smile divine
Death lies in wait behind Circean snares.

The evening knows thee ere the evening star;
Or sees thy flame sole Regent of the bight,
When storm, hoarse rumoured by the hills afar,
Makes mariners steer landward by thy light,
Which shows through shock of hostile nature’s war
How man keeps watch o’er man through deadliest night.