I carry the ocean home with me,
tides moving in my body,
song echoing in my cells,
sunrise in my eyes,
salt in my blood,
a wave-softened heart,
my layers stripped back,
laid bare before
an endless rhythm,
my edges round
and smooth,
like a gray moon snail
pressed into the sand.
I finished reading She of the Sea by Lucy Pearce this week. I don’t have time to do a long review of the book, but I want to give a salt and sun soaked recommendation for this jewel from the sea. It is smooth and sensuous reading, full of emotion and depth. Such a beautifully wrought book–personal, archetypal, mythic, and magical. It makes me yearn once more for sand, shell, and shore.
A favorite quote: We need a story about who we are as humans to help us navigate the changes ahead. We need a narrative of ourselves as resilient and creative, capable of meeting challenges, a species that has always adapted and grown in a mystical unseen dance with the cycles of life on this planet. Of our bodyminds as having been shaped by the ocean for millions of years. Of the unconscious as an available and precious repository of wisdom that is the basis of all cultures. Of the vitality and sanctity of wild places. Of ritual and prayer as technologies of communication with a universe that is not indifferent, but intelligent. Of the natural world being an intimate part of us and in direct communication with us… (p. 233).
She of the Sea blends ritual with science with reflection with story with musing with question with study with spirals. I deeply enjoyed it!
“Standing looking out to sea can be like standing at an altar.
You wait in silence for
some kind of benediction. If prayer could have
a physical destination, this would be it.”
–Jean Sprackland, Strands: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach
