A House of Light

The Punta Gorda lighthouse was built in 1910 along a stretch of beach that came to be known as the Lost Coast. In the Pacific Northwest, coastal fog and rugged strand made passage by ship dangerous, especially prior to the sonar technologies that only came into wider use in the 1940s.

I had the good fortune the spend a few days backpacking along the Lost Coast and was able to see and climb up the skeleton of this hundred year old structure. The brick, iron, and view are all that remain of a project that was built on an inaccessible coastline. It was placed here not because it was beautiful, not because it was easy, but because it was needed.

Considering the lighthouse this past week and current challenges that face the planet and the life that lives on it, I was reminded of one of BJ Palmer's epigrams:

"It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness."