Balance

Stacked rocks, more commonly known as Cairns, placed along the trail signify that you are on the right track. It is a marker guiding you to the correct path or trail in cases where navigation becomes difficult and the trail may be easily lost.           https://trailandsummit.com/what-do-stacked-rocks-on-a-trail-mean/                                                       

From the time I saw my first cairn, I have always been mesmerized by them, because they represent being on the path. Be it their beauty, their purpose, or their amazing ability to withstand the elements, a cairn always stops me in my tracks and calls me to consider where on the journey I am.

During this difficult time in our world, where everything is in such a fragile balance, the cairn takes on even more significance for me.

During our daily hikes, I found myself picking up a simple stone with the intention of ‘recording’ the various places our hikes took us, and building a cairn that represented and reminded me of my quarantine experience.

So a few weeks in, I gathered the rocks I had and started to build. I thought I had chosen well, with nooks and crannies “a plenty” for stacking and balancing. But every time I almost had it, the stones would come tumbling down.

And I would have to start over.

I’d look over my choices, and begin anew. But no matter how many attempts, I just could not get it right. I didn’t know where to put each stone.

I wanted to create something balanced enough that the slightest breath would not knock it over. It reminded me of all the many honest efforts people are making to “do this quarantine right” … And still so many things are falling apart.

People are struggling. So many do not know where to put their pain. Their anger. Their fear.

It’s seems as if this ‘new norm’ is asking something of us.  And some days… some hours… some minutes!… we don’t even know if we have what it takes.

Throughout my life, I have whispered the words,  “Help me to stay on the path…” This has been a prayer that started, as a young person,  from a place of fear. Now, this same prayer comes from the humble awareness that we are all in this together, this ‘thing’ called life.

And it is in listening to the sounds on the path, within and around, that I believe will help us ‘not fall over.’

When we look at life from different angles, we begin to see a bigger picture.

Looking at the rocks, I saw where two settled into one, just like two thoughts can create a better idea.

Amazingly, how one hope depends on the support of another, a new angle I hadn’t thought of yet, allowed me to build a stronger, more beautiful structure.

Even as I continue to build and rebuild my cairn, I am coming to discover that I don’t always have to understand why certain things in life are just what I need to find a balance.

Rather, the balance comes as I start to trust the process and stop trying so hard to make myself stand on my own.