My
sister, Linda, and I chose a sparkling September day to set out on a
river cruise aboard the Maine-built wooden boat, the Seguin. We were
visiting the Maine Maritime Museum in the city of Bath, which is
situated on the Kennebec River and famous for its centuries-old
shipbuilding industry. Seguin's captain, Dave, mentioned that in the
coming weeks the cruise would lure many serious photographers eager
to capture a perfect view of the six lighthouses located along the
Kennebec.
The
Feng Shui “Theory of the Five Elements” may be applied to our
natural attraction to lighthouses, with interesting results. The
ancient sages observed that energy moves in five fundamental ways:
downward, upward, outward, around, and inward. These movements are
expressed in Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal; and are the building
blocks of everything that we perceive in our world. The elemental
forces are never static, but are constantly interacting with one
another, sometimes creating, sometimes destroying.
In the
natural scheme of things, water extinguishes fire. However, in this
case, the brilliant, glowing, illuminating rays of the lighthouse are
surrounded – but never quenched – by the deep, moving, often
dangerous waters of the rivers and sea. There is hope and the
promise of safety in the fact that this particular fire is constant
and indomitable. Something deep within us is stirred by the
knowledge that this small circle of brightness has the power to push
back the night.
On the
return journey, Captain Dave talked about the river itself, and the
changes that have taken place over the past several decades. As we
watched eagles flying overhead, and the sparkling water flowing by,
Dave said that as a boy he couldn't swim or fish in the river – it
was too polluted. 150 years of industrialization along the rivers had
done their damage. But in an era before the environment was a part
of everyday conversation, Maine's own Senator Edmund S. Muskie worked
systematically to find solutions to air and water pollution. Senator
Muskie was the driving force behind the Clean Air Act in 1970, and
the Clean Water Act in 1972.
Human
beings are most nourished in places that contain all of the five
elements, and we had all of them that day: the pristine waters of the
Kennebec, the tall white pines and spruce trees along the banks, the
late summer sun, the immense rectangular shapes of the buildings of
Bath Iron Works, and the pretty domes and arches of historic
buildings of Bath. As the days are now getting shorter, and the New
England winter is looming ahead, I'm going to be reminding myself
that there is a perfect five-element day just a memory away.
