One of the advantages of living near the ocean is that you can, most days, go look at the horizon. I have taken a lot of pictures of the horizon over the ocean over the years…because I love the light that happens there, especially on stormy days…on days when fronts pass and the weather is changing. This shot, taken at East Point in Biddeford Pool on my Snowy Owl prowl the other day, has an early morning feel to the horizon light but it was taken in early afternoon. The sun was still high above the clouds and the warmth along the horizon was due only to the distance and the amount of air between. You can also, if you look closely, see the curtain of light breaking through about half way to the horizon..showing in the image against the clouds as what we call drawing water lines.

On the days when I need to see the horizon, it is because I need that apparent distance to give scale to whatever is cluttering my mind and clogging my spirit. I need to be able to look to the limits of vision and know there is something beyond that is not bounded by my day.

I have never sailed far enough to know days on end where the horizon is all there is to see. I am always standing on some shore when I look, so the horizon is a promise, not a threat. When I have my fill of horizon I can turn around and walk back into my day…with the challenges, generally, reduced to manageable size…or at least with the promise that something from beyond the horizon might change everything (and I can still believe that will be for the better).

And a horizon is an appropriate image for the new year, for today, the first day of 2012.

/////////////////////////////////////// Gap detected /////////////////////////////////////////////

(I am just back, in fact, from a quick dash to the beach to photograph the sunrise of the new year. I will post images in a while as a special New Year’s Day edition.)

But to finish the original Sunday, New Year’s thought, it is that horizon thing. Facing the new year, it is good to see it as a horizon experience, both in the mundane and in the spiritual…something to give scale to the whatever has cluttered your mind and clogged your spirit this past year. The horizon is always there. The good days are the days when we have it in sight.