Sunday mornings, prior to sunrise, find me traversing an empty beach lot to the dune line. A short climb over ever-growing dunes and a quick walk across flat, sugar-white sand beach and voila! Wrack line. My target for the 1.5 mile search eastward.
I walk toward the rising sun. I’m looking for sea turtle tracks but this time of solitude at sunrise gives me space to be with the ocean, to open myself to the day and what life presents. Sounds great, right?
Today like most all other days I opted to carry my heavy camera, heavy super-wide angle lens and my carbon fiber tripod…not so heavy but after 3 miles it all starts to feel rather burdensome. I can’t help it though. Try as I might to leave the sturdy gear at home, the artist in me wants to see dawn through my lens. The environmentalist in me wants to pick up trash on the walk back. So a heavy trash day, like today, leaves me exhausted.
As I trudged back west picking up trash, the wind was blowing strongly against me. Lots of plastic in various forms littered the beach and so I was constantly bending over while trying to keep tripod and camera cases from falling off my tired shoulders. It was very frustrating….the trash, the soft sand and the heavy gear. I felt so weighed down.
Truthfully though, all of the stuff I was carrying was light compared to the inner burdens that were weighing me down. I struggled with my anger over trashy humans who throw garbage off of fishing boats, with tourists who leave plastic bottles, plastic caps, fireworks, plastic bags, and cigarette butts behind. After a mile and a half of gathering up the wastes humans left behind I felt weighed down with anger, frustration, feelings of hopelessness for our collective future and the health of our planet. And any other heavy emotion lingering about seems to pop up when I am tired. So hello my little friends….good to see you remember me. (Not!) Weary walking, this day. Very weary walking.
I was so exhausted toward the end of my walk I tried to push past trash rather than stop and put it in the already-heavy bag. But I couldn’t. I wanted to weep with fatigue and dehydration yet my love for the planet strengthened me to stop and collect the bits of garbage. I had to deal with it. I don’t want to do this! I’m tired, I silently whined. I wondered how long it would take the ghost crabs and other scavengers to pick my bones clean if I collapsed. And yes, I have a vivid imagination with a flair for the dramatic. Don’t artists always suffer for their work?
In spiritual studies, which are really studies in healing inner wounds, psychic debris and ego-driven living so our highest self can shine forth, I have sometimes wished for amnesia. Once a personality flaw is unearthed and brought to consciousness it won’t go away or get fixed by ignoring it. I thought of this as I picked up plastic garbage from the beach. Try as I might to walk past it I just couldn’t. My commitment to wildlife is to pick up this 1.5 mile stretch of beach every Sunday morning. Like my commitment to personal growth and healing leads me to keep working on myself no matter how tired or weighed down I feel. Oh, happy day. Right?
When I reached my car the feeling of letting everything go was amazing. The struggle had been great this day. Strong wind, soft sand, lots of trash…heavy gear. But the payoff…oh, the payoff. Feeling my heart and mind connect through my art. Knowing that the trash I collected will not harm innocent creatures…hoping that something I do will make a positive difference for the planet…this and singing to the sea gave me an incredible lightness of being.
The struggles? I still think it’s all worth it. Just look at this beautiful planet. Look at the sea!! And if you dare, look into my ever-lightening heart.
My last morning on photography retreat was spent in my favorite place to work with water in the Smokies. It was so early, in fact, that I hardly saw anyone else…except a bear that scurried off as I drove by him. Standing beside or in flowing water made it difficult for me to hear snapping twigs if a big critter like a bear approached so I did a bit of singing hoping they would hear me and choose to wander elsewhere.
Aside from that slight tingle of bear awareness it was the perfect ending to four days of connecting with nature through photography. Blissful quiet, hardly another human in sight and verdant beauty that seemed to reach into forever made me glad I had awakened before dawn and made the hour’s drive before the weekend crowd became active.
At one point I was braced against a large, gray rock with both feet wedged in between smaller rocks in the cold water while balancing with my tripod and camera taking long exposures. I checked the exposure on the screen and felt so grateful to be capturing such lush and endless beauty. My heart and mind merged with the flow of clear water and I felt a sense of purpose and direction that had eluded me for months.
