GROWING UP COASTAL The Secrets of the Tides

from COMPASS MAGAZINE VANCOUVER ISLAND | ISSUE 34 | AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2021 | RECOVERY

by Compass Magazine Vancouver Island

NATUROPATHIC INSPIRATIONS Love your Life into Recovery

BEING HUMAN

BENEATH IT ALL TODAY

JAMES L. ANDERSON

Continued From Issue 33

At heart center we are all Spiritual Beings. We

all seek communion, harmony and Unity somehow, someway all of our lives. We rage outward to Know, communicate and discover that genesis and center yet to come, always. From the moment we were BORN we yearn to find home… to discover at last where we somehow naturally belong, together as ONE.

In our imperfect ways we try to Love one another beyond anything we have ever known, somehow creating what has never been before.

Living, breathing in that outrageous quest is how and why we can create, give birth and reproduce, dreaming towards that miracle of UNION. And we must finally comprehend why we seek, care and rage ever outward… to “Be Human”. It is time now to understand.

In this monstrous world today, all this is desperately threatened with extinction.

And it all happened so quickly. All of us were overrun and broken apart. We all were driven into ourselves. Where we were SAFE. But alone. Not Human. Why did we all run instinctively within into I, ego, Being and the island “solitary One” existence we all know as ME.

Because it is all we have ever truly KNOWN. Nothing else is so visceral. Systemic. Real. Lived. The challenge to truly live “Being Human” lies beyond symbols, science, technology and all law, fact, formula and mathematics. And when we are brought facing up close and personal with forever losing something you love, hold dear and have become tentatively united and One with… the detached, confident world of science, logic, technology, law and fact are simply illusion, and empty charade. What we can touch, feel and sense is real and safe. But it is simply not enough. We were created to enjoin the battle to find perfect UNION, at last. You and I.

But in this world you and I are running away terrified from each other, abandoning the Dream and who we all are…trying desperately to escape. When there is no escape from the destiny that was breathed into us when we were born.

How could we have let this happen? How could we have let it slip away? How could we have been driven to give away the gift and promise of “Being Human? What could possibly have forced us all to break away from each other into our safe prison cells of SELF?

Fear.

And not just any fear. The Primal, horror, prehistoric systemic FEAR that lurks deep and centered beneath every whisper of terror in our lives today.

DEATH.

No one can escape DEATH. Unless against all odds You and I evolve a better way to be HUMAN on Earth. Where we can “Share” Life itself, as one, communicating in a higher more perfect form of Communication… never created before… where Death has no Dominion.

And Human Beings will never live in fear… again

www.james-l-anderson.com

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GROWING UP COASTAL THE SECRETS OF THE TIDES

JOSEPH MCLEAN

Photo © Joseph McLean

Tides are magic. A shifting, dancing boundary

between land and sea, teaming with life in constant transition. A cycle of access, of bridges built to strange new lands, only to be lost again beneath the waves.

Last year the tide let us down. The kids and I had set out bravely, bound from Beach Gardens (near Xah Kwoom) to Myrtle Rocks (Kwoo'thays qen) by shoreline alone. The beach was enormous, great fields of ripening seaweed and tropical pools. But when we rounded the last point for Myrtle at the stroke of lowest tide, we found our way still barred by golden cliffs, descending ramrod straight into the frothing sea.

It was a grand adventure still. We came home with a message in a bottle, three old golf balls, and the memories of a thousand tiny fish circling our legs in infinite loops. But still the cliffs remained in our minds, impassable, aloof.

And so, like many before us, we turned to the one book that could guide us on our quest. Deep within its pages, the Tide Guide foretold our return: nine months hence, at 1:38 on June 26, 2021. The lowest weekend tide of the year; lower even than the cliffs themselves. We hoped.

All through the winter we lurked and planned, the kids and I but especially Ryan. Then as the promised day drew near, a new and bizarre hazard arose. Extreme heat warnings, the public urged stay indoors, a familiar land suddenly too dangerous. We huddled in confusion over the kitchen table, racked with doubt as what to do.

The tide waits for no man, and in the end we decided to try. In our lightest clothes and our floppiest beach hats, with firm agreement on escape routes if things began to burn, we set out into the teeth of the sun.

No one was onshore as we locked the bikes at Beach Gardens and fled pel mel towards the sea. The descent among the sands was tortuous, like sharing a sauna with a pack of sea lions. But the moment we hit the cool embrace of the ocean, I knew we were going to be all right.

This was the pattern: Apply sunscreen (ocean friendly like us), slosh onwards bravely through the sparkling waves. Look at the starfish, and eels, and all sorts of strange creatures that come out only grudgingly at the lowest ebb of the tide. Harvest great shells and slimly golf balls, those treasures of the deep. Follow Daddy, Tide Guide disciple, as he urges you on through deliciously slippery shores. Splash uproariously and/or condemn your other brother for splashing you. And repeat.

We paused at the car graveyard, sitting on mysterious concrete steps in the only patch of shade on earth. From the backpack came an early birthday present, exotic Clif bars unavailable in the Canadian market. Great excitement

and devouring. Then onward, ever onward, lest the golden cliffs still bar our way.

As we rounded the final point, a giant golden hawk lifted from the rocks before us, his great wings blocking out the sun. Eagles and ravens took to his heels, circling above. Beyond stood the cliffs, stalwart, imposing. And below them, a small rocky path, fresh born from this lowest of tides.

We didn’t even want it, taking to the waters just beside, full of seaweed and miniature life. But this forest became too thick, and we went ashore at a place no one sees. Hollowed flowing rocks, emerald pools as warm as bathwater, dark crevices in the walls where strange creatures dwell. Just for a moment, for the turning of the tide was upon us, and our idyll could soon become our prison.

The path was gone now, and the last thrust of the cliff jutted out into the water like a heap of broken dominoes. We waded waist deep to scramble over the wetslick rocks, leaving bits of skin on the tiny barnacles. And then suddenly we were on a smooth pebble beach, and the path lay open before us.

With the time crunch now over, we fully admitted how hot it had become. Even the Pacific gave no relief, and we marched haggard along the rocks, hand in sweaty hand.

So large were these swales of stone that we didn’t see Myrtle Creek until we were practically in it, running alpine cold from the forest edge. We were saved again, and after recovering our stamina and brainpower we hatched a new plan to take shelter in forest and stream.

And that’s where we stayed, carefree and shady, as the sun beat down from the sky. Racing twigs, eating huckleberries, slapping gigantic hatfuls of water on our heads, squawking like chickens, leaping and laughing forever.

When at last we tired, we joined the shadows creeping warily from the trees and made our way back along the dusty ribbon of highway. The beach was still a no-go zone, crackling and hot. But by the time we gained our bicycles and ice cream cones, the tide had gently reclaimed that entire shore. And as the sun set flaming into the waves by our home, we leaped one more time into those clear waters. Neither cold nor hot but just exactly right.