Words and images form my walks and interactions with nature and the environment.
On a day when the sun sleeps behind closed curtains . . . unevenly washed in soft tones of gray . . . clumping into wads of cloud that randomly part to reveal pockets of space for the blue to peep through . . . I walk along the merge between earth and water . . . feeling emptiness . . . . absence . . . distance . . . and fear of memories fading. When the heart is too full it seeks space to release its burden . . . offering its overflow to the elements . . . opening space within its pulse for renewal. I take my sorrow to the water’s edge to be washed away . . . disbursed into the vastness of the beyond . . . the up . . . out and away into the unknown and unknowable . . . trusting the wisdom of the one . . . the all . . . . .
As the usual spectacle is closed for the day I turn the other way . . . . to see what is behind and beneath me . . . . out of my gaze . . . and discover a shadow world rich in growth and forms that so often go unnoticed . . . seemingly insignificant details of all that is taken for granted when the mysteries that lie beyond the horizon pull my eyes toward them . . . mesmerizing me. I walk upon a water-made quilt of many shades . . . . a tapestry of varied ocean gifts and dregs . . . arrivals and departures that usually blend into the surface fabric of sand . . . stone . . . weed . . . . surf . . . shell . . . rock . . . wood . . curious objects that land and embed themselves into this particular weave from this particular wave.
The small spectacles of chance happenings become entrancing . . . the way a strand of weed becomes hooked around the neck of a rock . . . bubbles settle on the face of a pebble . . . a bamboo shoot split apart and entangled . . . the vacant home of a stone that succumbed to the force of the outgoing tide . . . the random way that stranded objects line up . . . fall into place . . compose themselves in variations of natural orders repeated endlessly along the shore . . . There is a language of small stories . . . beginnings and endings written into the sand . . . inviting readings and projections . . . images like echoes of all that is known and imagined . . . situations reorganized and redefined into chance couplings and collectives . . . stones finding new homes, ledges and wedges . . . water finding new pathways to follow . . . multitudes of detached fragments falling into new attachments . . . . composed and determined by unpredictable elemental forces.
And there . . . standing at the foot of the cliff . .. .eyes scanning the towering ancient monuments of land’s edge . . water seeping out between layers and crevices . . . saturating mossy green formations . . . like furry beasts pulled out from the depths . . . rocks weeping tears from the earth . . where tufts and clusters of green growth sprout like beards and unruly heads of hair. All this holds me . . . keeps me from falling … always behind my back . . . contented and present in all its glorious randomness . . . slow erosion . . imperceptible transformations . . . the soft patter of drips drowned out by the thunder of the ocean waves.
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