Walking along the shoreline, enjoying the sights and smells and feel of the seaside, I wondered why Jane and I have been so drawn to the sea. Over the years we have enjoyed walking along the shore around the British Isles: northwest England, Wales, southeast England, south coast, southeast coast, east coast, northeast coast, east and west coasts of Scotland, and the western Isles (Islay, Mull, Skye, Colonsay), the Isle of Man. We have walked, too, along the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Pacific coasts. We are always drawn to the sea. If we could choose where to live, the closer to the coast the better. As presently we are landlocked, vacations must suffice.
Of course, we are not alone in loving the meeting of land and sea. The Celtic Mystics of old often found their way to the sea, more often than not building a monastery there. We have enjoyed time on three Holy Islands beloved of the ancient Celts: Iona, Lindisfarne, and Caldey.
So on a walk by the sea this week we mused aloud. What draws us? Perhaps it's the expanse—the horizon is so wide; too much to take in. You realize your smallness and insignificance. Or it's maybe the peacefulness of it. Or the constant sound of the waves—does the sound of water take us back to the womb? Or the smell, which is like no other. Of perhaps it's childhood memorIes of vacations with the family, always at the seaside. Or books we had read. A certain genre of British children's books often started with a railway journey to a seaside location. Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" series starts in just such a way, with three children, Peter, Barny and Jane, journeying by train to Cornwall. "Jane sniffed excitedly, 'I can smell the sea!'" it says in the first chapter. (I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard that!)
In the end we decided beside all of those ideas and memories we are drawn to the sea because of the daily cycle marked by the tides. The daily cycle was there millennia before we walked the beach. It will be there millennia after we have gone. The cycle reassures, it comforts. It is always the same, yet always new. The beach is renewed every day. We walked the beach yesterday—five sets of human footprints, and three sets of pug. Today they were gone. Today we walked the beach again and made our mark. Tomorrow our prints will be gone. The beach, where sea meets land, is a place of daily renewal. Yin and yang interchange playfully. Newness and decay are all around.
It reminds me of the happy fool of philosophical Daoism. The fool wakes everyday with a blessed forgetfulness of that which occurred the day before. Each day is completely new, just as each new tide wipes away our footprints. Every day begins the cycle of wonder again. (The happy sage, methinks—she's not so foolish.)
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. The year turns. This Advent is new, yet it is like all the Advents before. Familiar and unfamiliar. The footprints are wiped clean. We start again. Enjoy the season!
+Ab. Andy
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