Horseshoe Crab Encounter

While on vacation in Wellfleet MA this week I set out on a walk down the beach.

Six weeks until retirement. Such a big change in my life, after working in the same place for 31 years. This week I finally feel I have time to do some of the soul searching I felt I didn't have time for while concentrating on the work I needed to finish at my job, which is for the most part done now.

So I set off down the beach as the tide was rising. It was a lovely day although the forecast had been for cloudy weather.

I first encountered a large horseshoe crab(which I now know, after some research, was probably a female) in the shallows. She looked up at me. She approached me and eventually her two big eyes were out of the water, clearly looking right at me. She held my gaze for what seemed like a long time but was probably not even 30 seconds. She then did a full pirouette and headed into deeper water.

I found this to be a remarkable event. I felt there was a message to be learned. As I'd been walking I had been searching for opportunities to 'merge' parts of myself I'd been ignoring and bring them back into the wholeness of myself, Stage 5. I walked on.

I soon saw another horseshoe crab. This was was more medium sized, perhaps a male. He got a brief look at me and quickly departed into deeper water. Not sure what this meant so I kept going.

Soon I saw something sticking up a few inches into the air near the water's edge. This turned out to be a rather small horseshoe crab, at least smaller than the other two, and it was in distress. Flipped over and seemed unable to right itself. I've seem them do it so I know it is possible but this poor fellow was pretty stuck. His tail was pointing straight up, no way to use it to turn over. I gently lifted him by his tail(maybe not the best way?) and after three tries he was oriented properly, he kept folding up on himself, protecting his underside. Finally he sorted himself out and went on his way but as I walked along he seemed to rush along beside me for several steps as if to maintain contact long enough to say 'thank you'.

Wow, this was getting interesting. I continued down the beach but soon came to a rocky section ending in a big jetty too big to climb over and with the tide coming up, the beach effectively ended there. Instead of turning back 20-30 feet sooner, I walked as far as I comfortably could between the rocks and was rewarded with another visitor. A small-ish horseshoe crab covered in 'barnacles'(actually I think they're lipids or chitons or something) giving the appearance of being very old(and wise?). I thought they appeared to be 'riders', perhaps pieces of wisdom collected over time. I didn't have a long encounter with this fellow but felt like I'd been thoroughly looked over. Perhaps he was saying 'did you get the message?'.

I started back the way I came. One small horseshoe crab visited me on the way back, perhaps the one I'd 'saved'(honestly, he probably would have been fine as the tide was coming up). Again, just a brief acknowledgment but otherwise he went on his way.

I began paying close attention to my steps. I'd been walking mostly in the water just at the edge so as I walked back there were no trace of my footprints in the sand ahead of the rising tide. As I walked, the footprints disappearing behind me, I envisioned walking from my past into my future. Every day. Every step. This is what is happening all of the time. There is no escape from it. Each time my foot leaves the ground, that is past. Each time it reaches ahead to the future. Where my foot is on the earth. This is now. Each step a perfect 'now'.

I wrote this haiku on the walk back:

Walking on the beach

Steps merge the past and future

Tide greets heart and soul


I wondered what the horseshoe crab encounters meant. I came up with:

Ancient animal - wisdom for survival?

Patient and methodical - wisdom in patience?

Driven by tides to mate - a 'pawn' of natural cycles?

I did some research and found a site with great information:
http://wisdom-magazine.com/Article.aspx/3191/

On another site I saw 'many opposites and contradictions' within the animal and I felt drawn to that too.

I studied theater arts and then mathematics in college. Each would have led to a very different life.

My career landed in data analysis for oceanographic research, mainly in underwater acoustics, but my artistic side has always been longing to lead me. I have worked with fabric and fibers since I was quite young and continued these as hobbies while working but work took a lot of emotional energy that I would have used for them. About ten years ago I had a 'renaissance'  and expanded into beads and wire and polymer clay as well as dying textiles and very recently stained glass. It seems there is never enough time to explore the possibilities of this ever expanding array of underdeveloped talents.

It is very exciting to see a future where these 'hobbies' become the primary focus of my life instead of always pushing them aside.....

Aha! Perhaps this is the merging I have been seeking. The part I've been ignoring. My artistic side! So simple. A walk down the beach and some chance natural encounters lead me to a fabulous conclusion.

From the horseshoe crab I've learned:

- to protect my true and authentic self

- to be patient and persevere; there is a time for everything

- have compassion for everything and everyone including myself

- trust the ancient wisdom within myself

                                        Thank you, Horseshoe Crab!

Eye-ing spring

Last week I went to 'camp'. That is what it felt like to participate in the Road Scholar Program at Cedar Lakes Conference Center in Ripley, West Virginia.
My husband was taking the wood turning course and I took stained glass.

A few weeks before our courses I saw a scene out my bathroom window; bare limbs reaching for the sky, and one amber-colored leaf, hanging on.
I brought this idea with me and to my delight, I was able to create a stained glass design from my idea:

Once it was completed, I saw the leaf looked like an eye and came up with the name for the piece: Eye-ing Spring.
It is not yet hung up. I'm waiting for cup hooks to hang it in another window.



I had time to make another piece. I wanted to do something in the sun-moon-stars theme. This is a sentimental theme for me. When my brother, Wilson, was a young child my mother was explaining relationships to him. 'You are my son...', she said; and he completed her thought with 'and Cynthia is your moon and David is your stars'. So profound for such a young person.
I found and executed this design:

One thing I love about this design is that it looks wonderful with the light shining through it but also see below where the decorative solder can be seen.

The entire experience was wonderful. I left feeling accomplished, relaxed and creatively stimulated. We walked everywhere all week from dorm to dining hall to classroom. Yoga every morning increased the 'monastic' feel to the experience. I can't imagine not returning to Cedar Lakes, maybe for more stained glass or perhaps one of their other incredibly interesting classes.
The instructors were dedicated and friendly with each other which made the group feel more cohesive, even though were were taking six different classes.
I'll give a plug here for my instructor Stephanie Danz ... more about Steph.... and even more.
Stephanie first had us all make a simple piece. An Apple. Although one person wanted to make a pear instead. And another wanted to make a green apple. This project taught us all of the steps to make a finished piece. At that point we were let loose to pursue another suggested project, a fan. But many started on a project they chose themselves. A design, or idea for a design, they brought with them or something they found in a book, there were plenty to choose from.
I started designing my eye-ing spring piece right away. I'm very satisfied with the result. Steph and her assistant Deb helped with the selection of glass for both pieces. If not for this help I think I would have spent a long time finding just the right pieces of glass for my projects. It is a little hard to see in the pictures but the moon is made from a beautiful piece of iridescent glass which Stephanie found for me.

Snowbound?

Today it is cold and clear, but snowless, on Cape Cod. 
This seems unusual for this time of year. We haven't had snow of any consequence this season, but on the West Coast I have loved ones who are experiencing an unusually large amount of snow. Such is the juxtaposition we find ourselves in.
In this atmosphere I am preparing for a day of cleaning and organizing.
Before I begin I start going through the items accumulated on the dining room table. Some are books left over from our last trip. I put them away in the library and find myself going over books in the travel section of the shelves.
I find a slim suede-bound volume. I know the name before I pull it out.
Snowbound. A poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. 

I remember receiving this book, when I was in my early teens, from a box of items that had come from my grandparents' house I seem to recall but it isn't completely clear. I believe from my mother's side but maybe my fathers' side since they moved into an apartment around that time? I remember at the time, one winter evening, sitting in my robe with some romantic notion of reading it and getting inspired but I don't recall ever reading it all the way through.
The book has traveled with me through the various apartments I've lived in. When I had only a few books on my shelf, it was there. Now I have a huge number of books and it is 'lost' in the shelves. I actually have a poetry section, but it is not there; instead, it is in the travel section for some reason.
 Today I thought it might be worth something after all this time. There is no date inside but the publisher is not the original. 

I looked online and found similar volumes for sale for under $20, although none exactly like this one. I suspect no major find here.

However, while looking for a date, or any other information, I noticed two sheets at the back of the book that were uncut.

And inside... a note which you can barely see in the photo above:

It is a fragment of what looks like a cocktail napkin. In ballpoint pen it says: 

This is to remind you of me. Ha Ha

My goodness! What mysterious message!

When was this written? By whom? Was it ever found by the person it was intended for? My imagination instantly conjurs a romantic story involving a lost love. 

But I can also take it as a message to me. The person who slipped it in there, maybe not the person who had the book before me, had no idea who would find it... thus the 'ha ha'?
It is nice to get a note from someone who I don't know.
I put the note back. Someone else will find it some day.
So I am not snowbound but since it is cold, inside tasks were planned.
I did do one of my cleaning tasks but the note has drawn my heart in different directions. Ah, the 'gottas' vs. the 'wannas'. 
I have a sign on my refrigerator from my original mentor, my childhood neighbor who was from Georgia and made wedding cakes for a living. It says: UGOTTAWANNA.
In other words, Desire is Mandatory.
Following the truth in my heart to join the 'gottas' and 'wannas' and make them one.

today

out my window, before dawn, the waning moon appeared between venus and jupiter; here captured through a prism of clear glass surrounded by cobalt, as a twin moon surrounding venus.