To the Lighthouse

ISSUE #141

A lighthouse is built of two supreme comforts: the light divine and the house mundane. It remains, like a lover, a beacon of safety or a siren of warning—depending on the condition of each passing ship.

In the time of transatlantic travel, a lighthouse marked shores of ship-sinking stone. The earliest, however, stood as signals of harbor, as old as the lamp at Alexandria. At first, people beckoned with fires on hilltops—the higher the flames, the farther they shone. Soon, they began to build them their towers.

They are beautiful in the old and terrible sense—phallic, imposing, sweeping, and treacherous. They represent a full act of trust. Is this the light to bring me back to my hearth? Or will this dash me upon the rocks?

It's Plato who said that the sirens of Homer—both males and females, in the original tales—can exist in three discrete forms: the celestial, the cathartic, and the generative. The celestial beckoned from the heaven of Zeus, while cathartic sang souls into spirals for Hades. Only Poseidon’s, terrestrial, served the swirl of the sea, singing songs from a graveyard of ships. Theirs was the tune of regeneration, stirring the lonesome who were long at sea.

To yourself fall victim to a siren’s song is to commit a sin of misunderstanding. A song—or a light—can mean danger or refuge, a coin toss for even the most seasoned sailor. The lost must learn which sign is which, or stay bound to the mast to resist the pull.

I no longer trust the signals I see, can no longer picture a path without rocks. Unless, of course, I swim to the song. Trust the light, hope I don’t see sharp stone. This weekend, I’ll drive to the Georgia coast—a trip to the lighthouse, first I’ve ever seen. It marks twenty-eight years as a soul on this earth.

Safety. Peril. Ever spinning. For now, I rest in my basement bedroom, the light of my lamp in the upper window. These bulbs have been godsends to all who are lost. Raise them high for our sailors to see.