News from the Rainbow World

By Christa Muths

The themes of the fables deal with the necessary changes we all must go through in our lives. By showing the effects of change in humans, animals, and even in normally inanimate objects such as lighthouses, we encourage children to think of themselves as part of nature, to care for it, and to think about the ways in which we all interact with the world and with each other.
Whilst they are designed to be read to small children and for older children to read by themselves. In the schools, the fables have been used as educational teaching materials that serve the learning experience and the understanding of the relationships between man and nature. The respon-sibility for each other is evident in all fables. The rainbow serves as symbol of hope and the power of implementation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: tredition
• Release date: Dec 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9783732315901

Book preview

A Day in the life of a lighthouse

Good, morning, good morning, wakey-wakey!, cried the seagulls, flying around the lighthouse, laughing, shrieking and wheeling.

The noise startled the lighthouse and he woke up. Well, lighthouses don’t sleep really, but every so often they get dozy and day dream while their light keeps on shining so that no ship can get lost. Nowadays, of course, ships don’t often get lost but they can come off course and not only miss the harbour but also get stuck on sandbanks or might hit cliffs or rocks under water.

When ships get stranded on a sandbank, normally they sit in the sand until the next high tide comes and this can take up to 12 hours! The fate of ships which hit a rock or cliff is even worse. They can be damaged severely and even sink.

It was very early morning, the sun had just risen on the horizon and it was time for the lighthouse to switch of f its light for the day and to wait for the night.

Such a day, after he had done his work, was of course not boring for a lighthouse, no, not at all. There are always new ships on the horizon and the lighthouse is always very eager to see whether the big and small can make it safely into the harbour. There are so many dangers lurking for the ships and the lighthouse knows them all. He has been standing on his place for several hundred years and has seen and experienced almost everything a ship and a lighthouse could see and experience.

The water can be totally unpredictable and together with the wind it can turn into an overwhelming power, so that even the most experienced captain has great difficulty and has to fight for his ship and the lives of his seamen.

Also, the ships change constantly: not only have they become bigger and bigger, they have also became louder and create more noise. The small ships with the white rags change their forms constantly. And recently he has noticed on the water all types of small ship-like creations which roar loudly across the waves. The lighthouse did not like these creations. In his eyes they were totally useless and even dangerous.

There were people on the water too. They stood on a piece of wood, clinging to a long thin upright thing, which was blown forward by the wind. These things did not create any noise but the people on them fell constantly into the water and had to heave themselves back out of it. This whole procedure also did not make any sense to the lighthouse.

But he really enjoyed the people who were riding on a piece of wood on the top of the white crest of a wave. Although they were buried by the waves, they always turned up again in a different place. How exciting, he thought. He would really like to try that out and sometimes he dreamt how wonderful it would be to ride around the world on the white crest of a wave, just as weightless as the humans.

The lighthouse loved his place and he knew his surroundings very well: he stood high up on a headland, which reached far into the sea, so he could be seen from afar. Not much grew near him, but further away on the horizon were some trees. Close to him stood some bushes, they were all bent by the wind in one direction.

So the lighthouse could see a long way not only across the sea but also across the land. Far away on the horizon there were some small houses and the people had to walk far to come close to him. He was therefore used to being alone and loved it.

He did not feel lonely at all, because he was very proud of himself and the work he did. Not only that, he was also very proud of his height and his colours: he was wearing colourful bands on his body. At the moment his stomach was painted in black stripes. Sometimes the humans painted his stomach in red or blue stripes, so that he could be seen from far a field. He loved his stripes and was always very eager so see in which colour he would be painted next time. He always observed the colours the humans were wearing very closely and loved orange and a strong and shining pink. Yes, sometimes he dreamt of wearing orange and pink stripes too.

Lighthouses dream during the day, only very rarely at night because their own light keeps them awake. The sun, the birds and also the people and their dogs can sometimes keep him awake during the day.

Unfortunately so far he has not been able to tell the humans his secret desires, so the colours of his stripes have only been black, red and blue.

Yes, he was very proud of his work:

He had to be strong and immovable, proud and upright to stand against wind and weather and to light all the ships on the high seas and also to show humans the right way to go. He also had to shine his light to warn of all places of danger such as sandbanks, rocks and cliffs, so that the ships could make it safely into the harbour.

During the many centuries of his life the lighthouse had seen and experienced a lot: the ships had changed, they had become bigger and stronger but also more colourfull. The land around him had also changed: some rocks, which he could see from his high position, had been broken by the storms and high waters and sunk into the sea. So the coastline had changed.

The sea had changed also. The huge new ships released a lot of dirty water which had polluted the sea. Water and fishes complained about it.

Lighthouses are in direct contact with wind and water. During the course of centuries they have learned to understand the language of the wind, which blows from continent to continent. They also understand the language of the water and therefore also the language of the fishes.

Wind and water are good friends just like all elements are friends. The two W’s – Water and Wind – are very mischievous, they create storms and hurricanes and cause floods. Floods can bring good and new soil for the land, but often animals die and sometimes even humans. But for the two W’s, as for all elements, dying has a different meaning than for the humans. The elements think and feel very differently: they see life as a cycle, everything has a beginning and an ending and then the old appears again in a new form.

Humans and animals are also made of elements and these never end. They form again and again new humans, new animals, new plants.

It is a funny day today, the lighthouse thought in the afternoon. The whole day I have been thinking about my life and how the world turns. I have become a philosopher, he grinned to himself. I am sure the stars last night influenced me. I will have a look at the stars more closely tonight.

The lighthouse knew the stars just like his pocket or better like his colourfull stripes! He also knew about the cycle of nature; the influence of the moon on the cycle of the tides; the power of the sun which defines the temperature of the water and he also knew, that sun and water influence the movements of air and wind.

Slowly night set in. The sun went down and the moon appeared on the other side. The light of the lighthouse switched on.

Yes, today was a funny day, a day in which the two W’s were very mischievous again. Sometimes they were like identical twins, as if they could read each others thoughts. All day long they played calmly and relaxedly with each other but later in the afternoon they got very playful and encouraged each other more and more. The wind blew much stronger, the waves became much higher and faster and faster until a real storm developed.

The lighthouse could see how the ships on the sea swayed and had difficulty in keeping to their courses. The little ships danced on the sea and all wanted to get into the safe harbour as soon as possible. But this was not easy anymore and quite dangerous. Even the big containerships had huge problems in keeping their courses.

Slowly, the lighthouse began to get worried about the people