In the passage of the year, closing one, opening another, I do ponder the meaning of it. But really, it seems so arbitrary. Who’s to say that there’s a meaning to the passing of days, daze, and the movements of the sun and moon, in finding something anew? Isn’t our calendar some configuration — blurred — that references Roman thinking (Janus, the two-faced god, emerging…) There are ancient cycles that perhaps have more astronomical meaning, and less to Christian promulgations of espoused confederations of politically correct evolutions and permutations (The Council of Nicaea).

Still, one goes from one sense of time, to another. And that could happen every day. I get up, and praise this dawning, this day, this emergence. I’m grateful for that, this: what’s happening now.

So doing some sanctified ritual, a personal transmogrification, might be a worthy goal for all. Not to the grotesque — but considering the potency of change in ritual…”Today is another emergence, time bends, light flows — and here I am, blessed in a manner, the midst of it.”

I do like balancing things.

It seems like if I see something, the thought crosses my mind to juxtapose this in some startling interpretation of gravity. Almost as a first thought. And I’ve been balancing things, literally and figuratively, for decades.

I look for that: balancing.

So, to the island, and the Wanderer’s cairn, I’d thought about that what newness could be refreshed, there. That cairn originated as a gesture to Matt Girvin — passing in 2001. And still, in this newest iteration, it’s still that, to his spirit. Now, ringed in a quaternity of wanderers stones.

But at the center, is another bigger gesture. And that’s what I was thinking about — that potency, in finding some new reference to structure, that captured more impact full power.

This was made on New Years Eve. The new years day brought a storm of amazing force and uninhibited grace. And I thought, surely, it would topple, so precarious, the framing and contact of the larger stones.

My lover and I carried these stones together, dragging them from the hills, the beach. That alone was surely a kind of ritual.

The stones, balanced.

Fire set, in openings, calling the heart of the stones.

Mongolian monastery incense, culled to the flames.

And later, still standing, midst the driving storm.

Balance thyself.

All beauty, found.