Cairn on Timber Island, ME

New Year’s Day, 2015.

My wife and I, three of our girls, and one boyfriend went exploring on the Timber Point/Timber Island trail at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge this week. We passed this cairn on the shore of the island, facing across the Little River to Goose Rocks Beach and points south. The Cairn was over 6 feet tall, and at least half again that in diameter. I added two stones for the group and my wife added one. It is tricky to get one on top, as you have to stand at the bottom edge and toss and hope…but we managed to add a few inches to the cairn with our efforts. I found a nice sparkly chunk of broken quartz to add a bit of sparkle to the pile.

It is hard to imagine how many people, over how many years, have added stones to this cairn. It probably reached about 2 feet before it had to be wider than it was tall to stand and grow, and after that the number of stones that had to be added to build height rose exponentially. There are a lot of stones in a pile of handable stones 6 feet tall.

When looking for an image for New Year’s Day 2015, this one spoke to me…there has to be a metaphor in there…adding stones is to a cairn is like adding moments to a life…once you reach a certain height you have to expand at the base more rapidly than at the peak. I would like to think I am still growing…taking a bit of extra time to find chunks of broken quartz to add sparkle…character…to the pile at this point…but I have become conscious over the past few years of how broad the base is getting. Part of it is social media. I have more friends and acquaintances, from all over the world, than I would have ever believed possible…and each one is built into the cairn of my years.

Or maybe the cairn is more like the year we all just shared…like, in fact, the communal life we all share…and the stones like the words and images…the thoughts and gestures…the good deeds and better intentions…that we have each and all added, one by one, to reach this height of wisdom…this monument to our passage.

For certainly that is, all other attributed meanings aside, what a cairn is…a monument to having passed this way. We celebrate, with all who have come before us, this unique place and time, by placing our stone on the pile. The stone says, not only “I was here”,  but “I was privileged to be here…and I celebrate with all who passed before me a bit of the wonder of being here.”

So here is my stone for this particular New Year’s cairn. Happy New Year’s Day 2015.

May you have the opportunity to enrich the cairns of many a unique place and time in the coming year.