Winds of Change

It was one of our last afternoons at the beach. The winds were blowing so strongly that sand bit at our legs. Sitting down would have been pointless in that kind of intensity, so we had come just to walk, and even that turned out to be challenging. The only folks thrilled with the weather were the kite surfers who dotted the coastline, enthusiastically riding the rough waves beneath their colorful parachute-like kites.

A few days before, I had tried to relax in my beach chair under similar windy conditions, only to have the pages of my book repeatedly ripped out of my hands, my hair blown into my eyes, and the umbrella turned inside out. Within moments of our arrival, sand had coated every surface of our bags, chairs and towels, and there was no reprieve. Those winds were powerfully steady, and the rip currents were strong. None of this showed any signs of letting up. Needless to say, we did not last very long before we abandoned the beach for the relative calm to be found only a few hundred yards inland.

Today, without the expectation of relaxing in a beach chair or swimming in the surf, we were traveling light. Walking along the beach unencumbered by bags or chairs, we were able to notice things that we had not fully appreciated before. Fighting the wind, I bent down close to the sand and saw that underneath each shell was a tiny mountain carved out of the sand. Each tiny shell-protected mountain seemed to be a microcosm of the larger mountain ranges that stretch across the landscape of this and other countries. Walking against the wind, it was easy to imagine we were trekking across steep and difficult places.

With the addition of these intense winds, what had been a welcoming beach became a stark and desolate landscape that challenged us with every step we took. The sound was relentless, a roar that made it hard to hear anything else. It was difficult to tell where the sound of the wind stopped and that of the equally intense waves began. Some birds were careening overhead, but if they were calling out, their cries were swallowed up and could not be heard.

This did not feel like the same beach at which we had spent so many calm, peaceful and relaxed afternoons! My thoughts veered sharply between feeling sad that we could not sit down to enjoy another one of those sweet afternoons, and sensing that the winds were exactly what we needed to be able to walk away from the idyllic world we had participated in for a good long while.

The winds of change were blowing, reminding us that our time in the south had come to an end. It was time to head home, despite the fact that we would miss the warmth, the sun, the beach and the ocean. It was time to head home and see what possibilities were moving toward us on those winds.

 

We Are All Connected

As we left my Aunt Gene and Uncle George's home on the West coast of Florida we asked them where we might enjoy stopping as we made our way North along that unfamiliar part of the state. They suggested a little town named Micanopy, which retains much of its old Florida sensibilities in architecture and attitudes. 

As we drove into the town, there was a sense of leaving the busy pace of highways, cities and modern suburbia behind. Gary and I gladly got out of our car and stretched. We wandered the streets, enjoying the quaint architecture of the houses and shops, permeated by a sense of a town that had held onto its sense of self in the midst of modernity. We were especially drawn to the enormous Live Oak Trees that could be seen in most of the yards. 

Gary had me stand in front of a particularly large tree as a way of showing the scale of it, and while I was standing there waiting for him to snap a picture, a young man called out to me from the porch of the house where he had been sitting talking with a young woman I took to be his partner. I returned their greeting, and the two of them made their way over to me as Gary arrived from across the street as well.

"All the trees you see around here are actually just one tree," he said. "They are all connected underground. The roots run all through this land, under the ground in this whole town and out beyond it as well."

Gary and I expressed our awe and amazement about the sheer magnificence of the tree we stood beneath and looked around at other trees that we could also see nearby. We stood there with our companions, just quietly taking it in for a while. Standing in that sweetly iconoclastic old town under those spreading moss-hung branches eased something inside of me. It felt like we were participating in some form of holy communion, soaking in the sacred presence of the Oak that literally surrounded us on all sides, towering over us and running beneath our feet. 

After a while I felt moved to try and express what I was feeling. "Everything we see is one ancient, beautiful old tree. Wow. I don't even know how to think about that."

I have read about how trees are connected underground, how their roots help them communicate with one another. I had even reflected on the fact that a small stand of Aspen that grow at the pond near my home are genetically the same organism. But there, in that moment, the concept took on a deeper meaning, a sharper reality for me. This is how the world is meant to be, I thought. We are all supposed to live in relationship with one another at the deepest level possible. We are, each and every one of us, a part of one another. 

I dare to hope that if we take to heart this basic truth of our existence, it could change the world. At the very least, it will change us.