"An Echo Of A Flame..."

There is a small island... among many others... off the coast of a larger island...

A very favorite place of mine to wander by sea kayak. I had never set foot upon this particular point of rocky shore until during one very, very, low spring tide. I was just barely able to land for a brief stretch... I often wonder what I may find during such moments... new vistas, unseen terrain, maybe not touched by any other... something from our past... And that was the echo that I not so much saw, as sensed that sunny day...

Among the trees, above the waters, tucked into the rocky shore... was an ancient fire ring...

How ancient I am never sure, but old enough for trees to grow tall among the placed rocks of this ring... old enough for there to be no remains at all of a flame burning, except for some blackening barely left under the rocks used there...

But still... here this was... and I wondered over it; pondered further too about who had been there, how very long ago, and with what echoes they had lived their lives with...

They would have been looking then at pretty much what I was viewing at this present moment... They stayed longer in this spot than I would, to likely eat and sleep by this warm fire. The flames would have flickered off the nearby trees with the echo of their laughter falling upon the company of the ocean... Their presence would have been reflected in many ways as they lived that day among these secluded islands...

Such echoes create images in our minds eye of what was, even at times of what could be...

I remind myself that our actions in the wild places may echo and resonate for eternities just as these fire rocks have...

I ask often of myself too... what will we pass forward to be heard generations from now, and who will sense the reverberations of our intentions and adventures of today...

What an interesting connection over time... From ages ago until these moments; from then until now... from them to each of us... in the simple echo of a flame.....
DSD