Messages from Others

I've hiked a good. number of beaches in my time. I've always found the sound of the sea and call of the gulls comforting. I've also always been lucky to find some sign that someone else felt the same way. I can't think of a time when I didn't find such a cairn left by another person as a message of peace and tranquility. I not a beachcomber or a shell collector. I'm a find a spot and sit kind of naturalist. I always have been. So, the balanced rocks are as special for me as finding a shark's tooth or a conch shell is for others. So, what do I do when I find one? I sit my ass down and think. When I was younger and could do that easily, people might even suggest that I was doing yoga and these cairns can certainly be found in yoga literature. But I am not that sophisticated. I am just fascinated by the time and effort and concentration that had to go into piling each piece of the cairn in a way that balance was maintained. I often imagine what the person sitting there and choosing each rock and experimenting. I can almost feel the focus required to defy gravity to create something that whispers "peace" to me. I've found them on beaches on the west coast, all up and down the east coast, and even on islands like the one above on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine. I found them along the Sarapiqui and Pacuare Rivers in Costa Rica, on a gravel bed of the Davidson River in North Carolina and almost anywhere moving water could create a stone that could be balanced. But the story didn't end there. I began to find them inland as well from the Hoh Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula to a trail along the interior of Pine Island, Florida. I almost fell of one on Mount Batttie in the Camden Hills State Park and sat in the presence of a small one along the Appalachian Trail near Shenandoah. I don't think it's the geography. I think it is the nature of bringing a peaceful message from one human to another whatever the symbolism. I know I can find someone to argue that with me if I wasted time arguing. But, it doesn't matter to me if I'm totally wrong because taking a moment to look at the result of another human's labor brings me peace, focus, and tranquility. Next time you're out anywhere. Look for cairn. Then think about what it means and what the person who created it was thinking. It's a peaceful exercise.