This isn't the cairn that I built, but it's close enough.

It was a mild November day, two days before my birthday and about three weeks after my husband left me. Alone in the big old house, I felt both calm and unsure. I don’t know where I read about cairns, but I remembered them being associated with journeying and helping wanderers find their way. Feeling like I was wandering and more than a little lost, I decided a cairn was just what both the house and I needed to ground ourselves in something real. Something earthly and solid.

I scoured the property for just the right stones. They had to be substantial, but not so overbearing that I couldn’t move them to the spot I had picked out for “our” marker, the southwest corner of the house. After about two hours of heavy labor, the seven-stone cairn was completed. This is what I wrote in my Gratitude Journal that day (2 years ago today), November 12, 2009:

“I built a cairn today. I moved impossibly heavy stones by myself, but they were the perfect stones. And they are in the perfect place. As I blessed them individually and together, I cried with the power of it. This cairn stands watch over the grounds, the house, and all who abide here. No one can be lost here, only found. I did this.”

This piece was written in response to the Monday Morning Writing Prompt, November from Victoria’s blog.