Idealism

Words will evade me if I try to capture this in a linear, sensical rhythm. Instead I give you this, perhaps it makes no sense. But perhaps you will find some truth in it.

Magic is all around you. It is the black dog bounding in the snow. The same bird, reappearing, and appearing again, bobbing on riverbanks and low tide beaches. The swan, trumpeting as it flies overhead, in that particular opening in the trees where are you standing. Insisting upon your pause, awareness. Noticing.

This bit is spiked with anger, or passion, or just some formless emotion. Indignance perhaps.

We are blind if we choose not to see the magic that lies in the wake of all things. The ether-tipped feathers of the spirit that fly through and over and around all of this earthly stuff, living and non... we often ignore it. Choose not to see. Too afraid, or paralyzed by logic to believe in it. Burying our souls in the quicksand of duty, or expectation and rule bound 'reality'. Too cowardly to do what is truly right or be accountable to ourselves and what it is our heart sees and desires. To not even be able to see it. To remember the flow of truth and not be lured back into the safety of illusion.

Wake the sleeper. The job here is not to pay attention to the rules and facts, but to sometimes ignore them, willfully seeing the shimmer of the mystical that pervades this world. Honour love however fleeting it may seem. Trust Impulse but don't lose yourself in it. Let it awaken you to possibility, and choice, but don't fall into it simply because it arises. Impulse came for a reason, but it may not be the one that you think.

It takes courage, to step off the beaten path of what is known. I dare you, and I dare myself to do it. There is magic on all sides. Light a fire on this mountain, even when it seems no one is there to see the light or feel the heat of it.

Tidal Missives

Sometimes I forget things. Like the fact that in this dark rainy and snow-deprived winter we are having, there is still solace to be found in the presence of the ocean. Not just in the urban harbour of semi-polluted saltiness I live beside, but within a quick drive from here. Crashing surf (on the good days), the sounds of shifting pebbles and sand, salt and kelp smells. Sometimes on spring tides a veritable treasure trove of ocean emissaries arrive as well, washed up temporarily for inspection. Oceanic serendipity.

Yesterday I had planned a forest walk with my dog-friend. I have been feeling tired, low, confused, unsettled. The laziness of a five-minute shorter drive tempted me, but instead I continued on, out from under the dark canopy of firs. The road opening out into the grey bluster of the west shore. I stepped out of the car into the soft damp feel of beachy air. Driftwood, seals, Scoters and Goldeneyes bobbing in the surf just out of reach.

Sometimes I am looking for signs, without knowing it. Often I find them and my body knows, even if my mind doesn't, what they mean. The beach at Albert Head is a place of memory for me, but also a place that is clean, cleansing, ever renewing itself through the winter storm cycles. On this day there were some treasures.

The first, on the walk up the beach was this adult Harbour porpoise, a chunk of skin and blubber flayed from it's body. The dog found it first (note paw prints pictured below) but thankfully made a decision not to try to eat it. Tomorrow it may be gone, or it may remain for weeks to be absorbed into the sand, to be picked at by scavengers and sink into it's rotting self. Soon enough what is left of it will get washed away, scattered and dispersed. It will become part of the liquid particulate of the sea, and be borne into the air and earth by whomever makes a meal of it's parts.

Harbour Porpoise with some interesting injuries...Orca or propellor?

Almost back at the car this little treasure appeared. Chitons are a marine mollusc often found in tide pools and stuck to rocks around these parts. They are often hard to spot, unless you know what you are looking for, living in a drab and furry little articulated shell, something like a seagoing armadillo. I had no idea that beneath their dull and prehistoric exterior, hiding on the underside of their shells was this vivid turquoise. Revealed after the departure of their fleshy lifespan is this blast of colour.

Inside of a chitons shell. Who knew? Not me.