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Tales from the Beach
Took place August 28 - 30, 2007published October 30, 2007
by Jeffrey Pierce
When you're going through a transformative stretch in your world, it's always good advice to step away from it for a moment, go outside, and take a walk.
For me, that walk takes place at the end of August, my third trek along the Pacific Ocean in the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, a stretch of beach that stretches from the Ozette Ranger Station north almost to Shi Shi. My trekking backpack strapped securely to my back, the trail meanders down windswept beaches and through rugged boulder fields, over lonely headlands and alongside tide pools filled with starfish, sea anenomes, and Dungeness Crab.
Last year, I found myself specifically led to the location to do ritual work, a rite to release the spirits of a clearcut awakened forest. This year was simply a return to one of my favorite locations here on Planet Earth. The majority of the time that I was on the trek I practiced mindfulness and existed solely in the moment. I consciously made an effort to keep my mind clear and simply be receptive, and approach which resulted in me spending the majority of three days in a semi-shamanic state. It was definitely an appropriate frame of mind for the trip and, being completely receptive, I received a lot of really significant insight and direction into both my path and my personal life.
There were a couple of key themes present throughout the trip:
- Death (and the necessity of it to create life)
An amorphous concept that everything is magick
The understanding that I was completing a very challenging poriton of my path that was necessary for me to walk (not just for myself, but as part of a much bigger weave), that I completed it appropriately, and that the difficult part is almost over and there's an unbelievable amount of joy waiting ahead
A trail of smoke crosses the sky at Cape Alava.
It seems as if everywhere that I went, I found naturally occuring circles. Algae painted them on rocks. A piece of driftwood bark had a perfect circle emblazoned on its underside. And circles were found in stones everywhere - as patterns of minerals and rings of quartz. It really kept me aware of the magick all around me.
One of the many circles I found during my trek.
But more than that, the circles were also a reminder that there is no beginning and no end. There just is. Everything happens for a reason and sometimes it's just so that when we return that theme in our journey, we have the tools to fully embrace the lesson held in that theme. That doesn't mean that the potential and at least a portion of the challenges no longer exists, just that we have the tools, experience, insight, and wisdom to succeed where we once fell short. It was a nice reminder - and applicable to so many areas of my life.
A partially buried animal carcass emerges from the sand.
A dead deer or elk was half-buried in the sand near Seafield Creek, my home for the second night of the trek. While the animal had died, it gave life to so much around it. Sea gulls and ravens fed on it the entire time I was there. There were tracks from other predators that had scavenged the carcass. One death, so much life. There, in stark relief, was a reminder of the theme of death that was hinted at in the opening contrail. Life from death is a concept that's not only useful to me in letting go when I want to hold on, but in healing those wounds and ego-lessly embracing life on the other side of that death.
A length of bird intestine is all that's left after a bald eagle's lunch.
The length of "pink string" above was another facet of death. It's not string, but the intestine of a seabird. Both a crow and a bald eagle were feeding on it (together) when I approached. Both birds hold some important symbolism to me on a handful of different levels. (Eagle is symbolic of Spirit and vision; Crow is symbolic of magick and the balance between spiritual and mundane law.) The two birds rarely cooperate or tolerate each other in the mundane world and are often in competition for sources of food. Yet here they were, two very dynamic forces, both finding life together in the death of something so close to both of their spirits. (After all, the crow, the eagle, and their lunch all call the sky home.) There were a lot of lessons and, strangely, a lot of encouragement in that one for me - even when something close to my heart dies, it gives life to important parts of my path.
The number three, sacred to the Goddess, appeared throughout the trek.
With the understanding that death brings life, that it offers something miraculous in it's place, it was time to move from the past to the present/future. The feminine divine began to appear on my path, both in symbolism and in much more tangible ways. When I first came across this rock (the number three has always represented the Goddess to me), I thought that it was simply a spiritual interpretation of that energy. But it was made clear to me it was much more than that. The beaches at Ozette are covered in rocks. None of the rocks stood on it's own in an unbroken setting. Each called to me from this thick tapestry of color and stone.
Feminine energy was a frequent theme in the language of the beach.
Sometimes I can be a little slow. I think that Spirit has taken this into account over the years and, if there's a possibility that I may miss a concept, subtlety is thrown right out the window. The narrowing arc of a tapered waist... the curve of a buttock... this one pretty clearly said, "It ain't just the concept of the feminine divine we're talking 'bout here, Jeffrey!" It was clearly a sign that physical feminine energy would be manifesting in my path. After all, what is more tangible than stone?
A symbolic map of the road ahead rests on a mist-soaked log.
Two sets of three rocks (the small black one at the left of the picture is on the log and belongs to that group) left by some unidentified hiker. Two pairs of three, selected from a sea of stones, and set together as part of a single grouping. This one held a lot of very personal symbolism for me. It was here that I took a deep breath, let go, and refocused my mindfulness. It's necessary to do that every so often, to let go of my wants and desires (no matter if they're conscious or part of my subconscious mind) and simply allow Spirit to speak to me through the language of symbolism and the events that unfold around me. It's a shaman's version of the Christian Bible, one of the ways that we find insight into our path, the interpretation of the natural world rather than the written word.The background of this photograph will give you a rough idea of the number of rocks on the beach. Ozette has extremely dramatic tides and the small amount of sand that you can see in the upper right hand corner of the photograph is part of low tide. The waves generally come up to the edge of the rocks and typically cover most of them at high tide.
A woman's profile (facing to the right) gazes from out of the rock.
The woman in the rock was another key indicator of the feminine nature of much of the symbolism of the journey. Her profile looks to the right and can be found in the center of the photograph, her hair streaming behind her.The last day I was there, I did some really deep shamanic work with the morning's low tide. The fog had rolled in (elementally perfect for shamanic work) and I quietly and reverantly embraced the moment. That morning I was given a thick piece of driftwood with naturally carved runes (Algiz was prominant) and sigils all over it. It was during that work that I was also given the next three rocks to meditate and contemplate their meaning, the path before me symbolized in three bits of stone. The stones I received at Winter Solstice 2005 were very large. These were small. Perhaps the lessons aren't as dramatic. Perhaps I'm better at understanding symbolism and don't require such a dramatic message. Perhaps I just wouldn't have figured it out had the spirit world handed me bigger stones.
The first was a deep green rock, oval and smooth. It clearly speaks of a fertile time when things will grow into something beautiful, healthy and strong.
The second is an oddly shaped white rock, flecked with red, sometimes so faint that it's pink. It clearly speaks of love with all of it's rough edges. It's not always easy to hold, like the green rock. But the green rock is simply promise. It's fertile soil - but it needs to be tilled, it needs to be worked, the seeds need to be planted so they can grow and be tended. The second rock represents that work, but where the green rock is simple and plain, the "love rock" is beautiful and intricate and I see something new each time I turn it over.
The third rock is almost as if it's made out of the first two. It's red, but not a deep red. In a certain light, it looks as if you can still see green seeping through. It's oval and somewhat smooth, but still oddly shaped like the love rock. It spoke to me of love and a power found to do good work, to change lives, to touch the world.
While doing shamanic work, my footsteps disappeared from the beach.
And apparently, I was somewhere else for a portion of the morning's journey. My footsteps literally disappear off of the beach. It was low tide, so they weren't washed away. My footsteps simply fade out and don't return. (The darker colored rocks are - ironically - softer than the sand and actually leave deeper footprints. The stuff is a nightmare to carry a pack across.) And what looks like a footprint in the upper center-right of the photograph isn't. It's a very thin piece of seeweed, turned on it's side and curved. You just can't tell at this resolution but it's very clear in the original.
A rainbow in the fog ends a morning of contemplative ritual work.
Immediately upon returning to camp I was treated to a rainbow in the fog, clearly described from one end of it's arch to the other. I'd never seen a "fogbow" before. It just seemed to say, "Keep doing what you're doing. It's all going to unfold beautifully."
One of the many footprints left by Bear that I came upon during the trek.
And while this one isn't chronological, this is one of the many, many reminders of Bear that I came across, a theme that was prevalent throughout my entire trek.