The Anchor of the Dark

I keep a small, rusted brass compass in the top drawer of my desk, its needle long ago surrendered to the stillness. It belonged to a grandfather who spent his life measuring the distance between the shore and the deep, and though it can no longer find the north, it remains heavy with the gravity of his journeys. We often believe that to be lost is a failure of navigation, but perhaps it is merely a state of waiting for a signal that we recognize. There is a quiet, aching beauty in the way we look for a steady point in the middle of a shifting world, hoping that something solid will rise out of the fog to tell us we are still here. We are all drifting, tethered only by the faint, rhythmic pulse of the things we trust to guide us home. What is the light you look for when the water rises to meet the sky?

Hanks Tseng has captured this profound sense of guidance in his beautiful image titled Lighthouse. It feels like a silent promise kept against the vastness of the sea. Does this beacon offer you a sense of arrival?