My way of life is often very stressful. Emotional and economic ups and downs punctuate the flourishing of imagination that I am so devoted to. I do my best to fully participate in this particular experiment that is “Being”. That said there are times when to disappear is desirable and I have discovered some methods of doing so temporarily.
I am fortunate to live in a beautiful place and nearby is a beach of fine pebbles. A hand full of this sand trickling through your fingers may be one of the greatest of sensual experiences.
The sounds and smell of the sea and the rich geologic and human history that surround, easily leave me lost in the sand, loosing time and self in the colors and shapes of these infinitely colliding worlds. This place has become quite magical to me. A place of concreted friendships, playful adventures, and of course catharsis and heartache.
In centuries past Spanish ships anchored in the deeper water and sent their boats to trade with a dairy that once stood on a cypress strewn hill above the cove. Before that the area knew nothing of men, save the Chumash who hunted and lived in cooperation with this beautiful place. And before that you would have only the company of the ancestors of the bears that were so recently killed off.
Occasionally when it’s windy and everyone stays indoors you can still have this place all to your self and it’s easy for my imagination to lead me in the footsteps of these ancient men. I often lay in the sand and find an empty mind; fingers running through the pebbly sand. How many hands full of sand! Each shifted and sorted by the sea, storms, and the small stream that spills out there. No two configurations of sand the same.
And then somehow, one quiet evening in the recent past, a weary mind loosing itself in the trickling of pebbles through loose fingers discovered something angular remaining as the pebbles poured free. And in all the hands full of sand casually and unintentionally deposited in just such order, this one yielded a look at a man from before. I suppose if you look at humans as once crawling from the sea, as I do, then you could say this stone, just as the others, was fashioned by the sea. But in a much more round about way. Needless to say the chances of such a thing happening have left me in astonishment and gratitude to this day for such a surreal experience. You never can tell what you might find in your hand full of sand.
