Understanding rhythms is what comes with living by the sea. I can grasp what must have gone through the mind of the person who saw an ocean for the first time. Awe inspiring was a term invented that day. It’s no wonder to me that early civilizations created a god for the liquid part of the planet. Stand for a while by a shore and you will swear the planet is breathing.
We keep time artificially. It is only a representation of what the planet is doing naturally. The passing of the sun and the impact of the moon make me aware of my lack of superiority in natural things, even though I am part of cosmos. In early grade school, learning about geography, I questioned the label of our planet as Earth. The ocean clearly takes up more space. The seas have mastery. One of the first books I read to myself was The Sea Around Us, by Rachel Carson. Her tales of seaside rambles captivated my imagination. A bit later I read Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea and I think I saw my future.
I sometimes have sat long enough on a beachfront to witness the tide come in or go out. The natural rhythm of it creates a relationship to my own body. The gradual change in the shoreline as waves creep (or crash) in and out, awakens my perception of my own autonomic nervous system. In those moments I feel an ancient tidal pull. This communion helps me appreciate the aboriginal teaching of connecting with my siblings of the earth, in the sea, and of the sky. We are one form. We must reconstitute these feelings of connection if we are to heal ourselves and our environment.
Time and tide wait for no man is an oft quoted line from Geoffrey Chaucer. In those times the word tide related to any seasonal magic. I try to see the wonders of the natural world in micro versions. How amazing the environment must have been before humans began their conquest. Now, even the seasons are at risk around the world as climate change creates aberrations of the natural state. Some geographical regions are more sensitive and thus more susceptible to change in weather patterns. Temperature rising in glacial areas is more significant than in equatorial spots. I find myself regularly grieving over reports of coral reef loss, desertification and general species decline. My moods can become tidal.
Long ago I was a child feeling kinship with the creatures found in tide pools. As my fingers caressed anemones, starfish, rockweed, and barnacles, my face reflected off the water’s surface. In those childhood adventures, the barrier between me and what lived below this fluid mirror seemed thin. As an adult, returning to the same area is a sad experience as the tide line has become a place of struggle. The intertidal zones around the world are suffering from pollution, rising heat, and shoreline degradation.
Time and tide continue as folks ponder their existence. Humanity waits and wonders.
