Beverly Gordon
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Upcoming Workshops and Programs
  • He[art]Space Blog: Inner Nature Art Adventures
  • Artwork
    • Tierras and other assemblage sculpture >
      • "Reconfigured"--the movie about my work
      • Processing materials
    • Collage
    • Miscellaneous Sculptural Forms
    • Photographs
    • Exhibitions
  • SoulCollage®
    • A sample of my SoulCollage® cards
  • Workshops, Lectures and Teaching
    • Recorded presentations
    • Workshop images and Student Work
    • Art and intuitive spiritual discovery workshops
    • Available services: lectures, workshops, faciltation
    • Ongoing classes: college or adult education
    • Death and Dying
    • A Taste of Past Offerings
  • Writings: books, essays, poems
    • Selected articles, essays and book chapters
    • Academic and Professional Consulting
    • Poetry
    • The Fiber of Our Lives: Why Textiles Matter -- slide show
  • Contact

BEACHWALK BEATITUDES AND (UNRELATED?) ART CREATIONS

5/21/2020

4 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Picture
PictureSea turtle path leading up to the nesting site and then back down again. The nest is at the top apex of what looks like a triangle and is marked by a post providing data about when it was discovered. The turtles lay eggs at night, and volunteers patrol the beach at dawn to mark each site. Nesting season starts around May 1.
      A very long walk on the beach this morning brought the feeling of stepping into poem-space -- where everything is in sharp focus and poignant, where all the senses are alive. Hard to quite capture in poem language, though, for there's a kind of lulling that comes with the sound of the surf, the entrainment to it, and the always shifting sensations.  Something particular happens with the alternation of the closely-focused looking down (as the inveterate beachcomber, I am always scanning the detritus on the sand) and then looking out to the vastness of the sea, the endless turquoise meeting the sky, where it's not possible to hone in on one detail at all. And the constantly changing feelings under the feet: walking over tiny shell mounds, or sinking down sometimes as the sand gives way, and the pushing off for the next step -- the hard packed surface changing into mushiness. The coolness and liquidity of the water pouring over the toes. Sometimes the surprise of a more powerful wave, splashing up over the legs.  All this, and seabirds.  And then, after a few miles, hot, and jumping in, (at this time of the year the water temperature is perfect) and the ever-amazing experience of the deep salinity and the waves that lift you up, and the feeling of the ridges of sand on the sea floor. Sticky salt skin. Something almost soporific in the journey, even wile the senses are so awake.

     Vastness may indeed provide a kind of quieting, a rocking motion. Not just the vastness of the sea (and this Gulf of mine is, in the scale of things, just a small ocean), but the vastness of the beach itself. Unfathomable numbers: the millions of creatures that inhabited the myriad scallop, clam or jingle shells that are still recognizable here, just on my few miles of sand, and the many, many more that once lived in the shells that are, after hundreds or even thousands of years of tossing in the surf, just tiny fragments now. And even further back, the creatures that lived millions of years ago--the ones that left their teeth and bones that have hardened into the fossils we are walking on. (The beach here has a greyish cast because so much of the sand is made of fossil bits). Unfathomable numbers, just of one type: the fossilized shark's teeth, 25 million years old. How many, many, many sharks; how many, many many teeth. And the even more unfathomable numbers of creatures that live between the sand grains (meiofauna--I've written about this before  [Feb. 25, 2019], but it is still so awesome, and  just because I know about it, it's more less possible to comprehend the numbers beneath my feet, even just this morning). The sand itself, made up of particles of abraded mountains, crystals, and these shells and fossils. Numbers that could only be written as a superscript power which lies far beyond my understanding.



      Vastness too in the immediate dramas: the number of sea turtles that have found their way up the beach in the last few weeks to lay and bury their eggs--a most laborious process of lumbering out of the water and digging a seemingly safe hole. (Some females even drop two loads in the nesting season). Very few of the little ones make it, but there is so much effort for those that do. There are thousands of buried turtle eggs on my walk. Thousands just in this stretch of sand, and that's even when the sea turtle population is struggling. Abundance and vastness in so much else around me: the number of leaves in a single live oak, for example, or the way the chaya plant puts out a rash of new leaves in every place it  has been cut.

    


      But I digress. This post is focusing on the beach and the morning's walk. The word beatitude came to me, even though I only had a vague sense of what it means. I knew Jesus gave blessings called beatitudes, but I was feeling the energy of the word without any particular association, and it wouldn't let go. The definition, it turns out, is "a state of great joy" --being happy and blessed. Yes, that's it: blessed with a sense of vastness, abundance, the unending quality of the natural world, the whole astonishment of it. Blessed are we all, living here, witnessing, tasting the salt, feeling the sand grains, holding the remains of beings from so long ago and glimpsing the depth of time.  Blessed are we all, for we are parts of God and the whole is always  in the parts.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Picture
Fossilized shark's teeth from Manasota Key.
   Another part of my ongoing blessing is the creative energy that comes through me, that plays with materials and forms and makes new forms which may be played with further. I'm posting a few images of pieces I've made lately--not consciously related to the beach, but because so many of the materials come from the beach, they are in fact part of that vastness too. There are stories about these as well, but those may be told another day.  Meanwhile, enjoy these. Click on the individual images for captions and information of materials and messages.   Do tell me how they affect you.
4 Comments
Ann Potter
5/21/2020 06:29:10 pm

Beautiful ! Love the “walk” on the gorgeous beach! And all that comes from it....your forms all so unique and creative...blessed you are...

Reply
Sue Coles
5/21/2020 07:57:50 pm

I loved Beachwalk Beatitudes. Evocative, alive, linking us to the wonders of the natural world, to spirit and to time.

Reply
Tara Conklin
5/22/2020 12:47:33 pm

Love your description of walking on the beach, especially how you marvel at the innumerable manifestations of life, past and present, that we trod upon and see surrounding us. We are all so blessedly interconnected! And it is so refreshing to be reminded of this! This is why we walk.....to be in that awesome remembrance......Love the art work too. Especially steering by the sun and the ones with the boats. Beautiful and playful.

Reply
Steven R Vedro
6/3/2020 10:35:46 am

Love your (new) Boats! Thank you for continuing to help me open my eyes to wonder.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author:
    Beverly Gordon

    Explorations and unfolding adventures in art, nature and spirit. These are intertwined--my art helps me learn about nature and spirit, and experiences with the natural and spiritual dimensions come through in the art. It's also about being amazed and awestruck--awestruck by the ways nature works, how brilliant and unfathomably huge it all is, and awestruck by what happens when we open to inner guidance. I believe that increasing the sense of appreciation and awe is a way of helping to heal the world. Join me on the path of discovery!

    Archives

    November 2021
    May 2021
    February 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018

      receive notices of new blog posts by subscribing to my newsletter

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.