Once upon a bridge

By Conrad Beaubien

I believe cast-over skies are consistent with November 11th: Armistice Day, Veterans’ Day, Remembrance Day, Poppy Day. While not every country celebrates exactly on November 11th, the tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in war is internationally recognized: conflict affects all. Allocating the date as a national holiday allows time for commemoration; the ceremonies continue one generation to the next, a universal recall of death and destruction precipitated by past world wars; hope for everlasting peace while conflict remains around the globe. Knowing the seeds of darkness lie within humankind, we strive to live in the optimism of our better angels.

The tradition of parades and large gatherings being set aside in this season of coronavirus had direct impact on the ceremonies around our recent Remembrance Day. Legion halls were closed or were restricted in group sizes. Leading up to the day, I began to think about honouring it with a walk of contemplation in the company of my 12-year-old donkey pal, Thunder. I considered where an appropriate section might be along the Millennium Trail; a place in the landscape that would hold symbolism for a small number of people to perhaps join me.

I recalled a recent time when as a volunteer for a trash bash cleanup along the Mtrail I found myself deep in a gully beside the pathway. After collecting tossed pop and beer cans and red plastic earphones, I stopped to take in the surrounds. It was a different view from down there in the ditch below the rise of the corridor. I was alone and a silence held in the soggy ground. ‘Down here are scattered rail ties now rotten, history ties to moss and lichen,’ I jotted in my notebook.

The crossties, artefacts from former days and the laying of a rail line using forests of oak, ash and maple, cut and set down as timbers, each one 18 inches from the next, 3500 ties per mile, parallel rhythms in a long rhyme of rolling steel. ‘Over there a plated tin reminder of a rail signal, now lost and pointing toward the weight of its days,’ I noted: ‘Yet further down lays a bridge of sturdy wood.’

In scouting for my Remembrance Day walk I returned to the bridge of my notes, the former rail bridge over Lake Consecon. I stood in the early sunset thinking how bridges are rife with metaphor—communication, union whether between heaven and earth or also in the way that I perceive shorelines to represent two different realms. We cross bridges as we dream, passing from one state to another. Bridges in meditation are ascension; in our lifetimes they can represent the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

Metaphor helps us with lyrical imagery. We often can more easily visualize a concept by translating physical objects into unspoken meaning. It helps with describing a way of seeing beyond how we understand our world in concrete terms. I share a quote that says, “as a metaphor, a bridge between people enables the passage of ideas, it connects people who are in different places, it enables help to be connected, it opens up the opportunity for people to be helped, it reduces isolation, it is a more efficient way of getting to another point, it increases the range of options.” It is the idea of reducing isolation that struck me, the concept that the bridge over Lake Consecon is an architectural structure made of many parts that like the parts of any community support the whole, a coming together. The foundation, beams, planks, each and every component contributes to the idea of a span over something. I now envision that perhaps where we are in our current time is building new bridges toward refashioned ways of life. We have left one side and yet to arrive on the other.

As Remembrance Day is a bridge of collective memory, at 11.a.m on November 11th past, I stood with Thunder and in the company of few we honoured one moment in time. One moment past; one moment present; we stood in mindful peace.

Opportunity for thought is an appreciated bonus of taking the time to do a slow walk in the presence of a large domesticated animal. There is a felt awareness between us; Thunder’s experience is new to each territory we walk. He reminds me of that. My role is to work at it, attempt to be alert to his varying moves and responses; one person’s try at redefining and considering in a concentrated effort what human affinity to nature can really mean.

I feel Thunder’s heartbeat as he hears mine. I hear his footsteps as he perceives mine. I am learning to periodically stop and turn him around so that he can see what is behind to be more fully aware of his surrounds. Looking back is part of moving forward offering assurances of new possibilities ahead.

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