The Maiden in the Lighthouse – Revised June 2009
Once upon a time there was a maiden who lived alone in a lighthouse at the edge of the sea. She had lived there for many years with hardly another soul to commune with and her sole purpose in life seemed to revolve around her commitment to tending the burning light inside the tower. Day after day and night after night she spent polishing the large glass windows, keeping the lamps filled with oil and tending to the fire. It was a lonely life but she had reached a place of contentment in her solitude and only her nightly dreams betrayed the real longing of her soul.
The most poignant dream, amidst all the nightmares of storms and raging seas, is one where she sees a
small child all alone in a leaky, battered boat. It is a dark cold night and the child is crying piteously for help as
I have never really considered myself a writer, much less, a story teller. I am a textile person and I work with my hands creating things out of fibers – material things – but a form of creative expression that has worked for me. So creating images out of words came as a bit of a surprise and I found that when my heart was in pain and I couldn’t seem to do anything productive – i.e. weaving fabric – I was able to find some solace in writing. I began to express and process this pain on the page and by letting the feelings have a life of their own, I was offered a way out of being stuck and immobilized. The medium of the fairy tale has always held a fascination for me and I am drawn to things that have some mystery and an other-worldly quality about them. There I find some relief from the rules and boundaries of the outer world and where anything is possible...even miracles.