Jewels, gifts and fires on a Bolinas B e a c h Stor y and photos by Dave • Illustrations by Jenny
There is a moment on the beach. Everyone is involved in something. Collecting wood for a fire. Looking for a piece of driftwood for an alter. Collecting stones to outline the fire ring. Unpacking backpacks and organizing our food. Cleo is sitting on a log watching, resting for a moment. She looks contemplative not bored. I walk up to her. Come with me I want to show you something. It is a minus low tide. Tide-pools that are normally hidden are exposed. High clouds over head promise a still warm evening. Full moon will be coming up shortly.
She follows me towards the water. There is a grayness to the day. Feels gauzy and mystic, yes sunshine is nice, big orange green flash sunsets are spectacular… but sometimes the gray quiet day just adds to the mystery and the connectedness of things. Sun will be setting soon. There is a back-lit black and white starkness to the beach. The water is cool gray and the sand is warm gray littered with small black dots. She follows me towards the water and I stop about halfway between where we have landed up near the cliffs and the water’s edge. “See all this?” I point towards the tide-pools, and the black dots texturing the water’s edge. She nods. “I want to show you something… This beach is covered in jewels. Think of them as gifts. Small rocks, pieces of glass, shells, skeletons, bones, sea weed pieces of driftwood…. She looks at me puzzled, slightly skeptical. We walk a bit further and I bend over and pick up a flat rock look at it quickly and cup it in my hand. “I picked this for your aunt Jenny.” I open my hand. It is a piece of flat sandstone. Soft flat an pastel colors, soft orange edges fading to the color of the sand. I turn it over and in the middle of the stone is a soft gray heart. A gray heart shaped fuzzy bulls-eye at the center of a the stone. I put it in her hand.
“Oh my god!” She exclaims. Her eyes are wide open now. We walk slowly bending over… suddenly she sees that these black silhouetted dots are actually amazing trinkets. “You’ll figure it out… some shaped like hearts, some with white rings around them, some with holes, some you can see through… some in the shape of animals. Cleo gaze changes transfixed to the sand and the ocean. I walk back to our camp. I find her friend, “ Hey Atlalie.” She looks up smiling, that fresh look of being so happy to be here. “I just showed Cleo something.” She looks around for Cleo and doesn’t see her. I point to the small spec at the water’s edge. On her knees looking for something. “There she is,” I point.
Off she runs without saying a word. I yell to Oliver “Okay, Ollie lets make that fire now.” Jenny is the best aunt in the world and certainly the best girl friend. I know how to make fires on beaches and I know how to make magical adventures. She knows about kids and she’s know a lot about magic and adventures herself. She brings her group to my house with back packs and goodies. I greet them as they arrive. Welcome to West Marin… from this point on we are nothing but magic!” I am wearing my stay weird T-shirt. The kids look at me just like I’m weird… but they know me enough by now to enjoy it more that ridicule it…
On the drive out I make a game of finding wild animals. We see (actually I see) a fox, a coyote, several deer, hawks on tree limbs, quail in the brambles. Jenny smells a skunk and claims that. Ollie sees some long horn cattle on the hillside, but we try discount them as not being a wild. “Look at those antlers they’re bigger than me! they’re so wild” We park and make our way down to the cliff. We have backpacks… lots of layers for warmth, blankets and ponchos, watercolors, sharpies and paper. Good cheeses, crackers, champagne and kid champagne, hot dogs and tofu dogs for Cleo. Buns and Ketchup. Some dry wood and a lighter. “Damn we forgot to stop and get Marshmallows!” Jenny exclaims.
We head to the beach. It’s longer than everyone thought, but I know it will be fine. There is a lot to see. I have brought my family here many times. Built fires and collected things on this beach for many years. It is full of memories. I know this walk and my heart is full of anticipation to share it with my small army of children and this woman who we are slowly evolving into a kind of sweet partnership of trust and openness. We are walking across the cliffs. I see the a the native iris douglasiana. Too early. So beautiful but a strange reminder that our world is off balance. The children have run up ahead. I’ve told them the way to go. I stop alone and look out to the horizon. There is a beautiful light filtering through the clouds. The ocean is still and the swells are moving slowly towards the shoreline… serene linear shadows wrapping around the point and into the cove below.
I stand here on this cliff and look out to the horizon. Always inspiring. Always a shiver and a moment for reflection. I feel Phoebe with me-- not some ghostly spirit, not some metaphorical angel, not a nostalgic memory, not something sad and overwhelming. I’m surrounded, I feel immersed. I feel connection at the base of my feet into the ground and out the top of my head into the gray skies overhead. My fingers and palms feel warm. Her presence with me is the gauzy warmth that holds all these things sacred around me.
All this beauty, all this grandeur, all this natural wisdom, all this pure essence. These waves are moving towards me. Such a reminder of seasons and cycles, a sweet gift to share with these kids and Jenny. Phoebe is everywhere. She is essence. She is angel. She is energy. She is here. I say it in words but feel it in waves of sensory translations. The emotion is gratitude. Yes, lets just call it an emotion. The children are off in front. Jenny is shepherding them slowly down the trail, it’s precarious but not dangerous. They trust her, everyone trusts her. I know they will wait at a certain spot. They will explore. They will be laughing an in awe. My parents have care takers now. They need help getting out of bed, cooking, putting their clothes on, using the bathroom. They are finishing their lives. They are together and living in the same house I went to high school in. Got to have gratitude for that. How nice to live a long life, love and be loved by your family and then you die. I no longer ignore death and for that matter I am no longer afraid of it. I am almost 65 and still feel my youth and feel blessed to do so. (although aching back these days has me bent like my 95 year old dad). I want my life to have meaning and to share it with others. Look at this moment the wonder and beauty. Kids are running on the sand like happy animals.
Watching them fills me with joy. Yes, I feel the depth of my loss but also the gratitude it brings as I look out over this familiar cliff towards the ominous but enveloping ocean. Yes, Phoebe fell from a cliff just miles south of here, but now it is about the wonder and the mystery. I am forever standing in that field of rye (and iris douglasiana). Standing on this cliff always the catcher in the rye. Holden and his Phoebe. Here is the way down to that place of discovery. All these hidden jewels and gifts down there. For so long it was pain and feeling sorry for myself. People would ask how did she die and I would tell them. I’d feel wounded that was all they really wanted to know. She fell from a cliff at the Marin Headlands. But that is not what really happens. This moment is the proof. Her beautiful energetic being beams light into everything I do. But yes she fell from a cliff on April 14th, 2008. It is impossible to explain, she is here next to me. The kids are below running on the sand. Jenny is laughing and wishing her dog Vinnie was here. Phoebe is nudging me to also be a bright light. Some of it is just that simple. Everyone is safe. I can be generous in love to support that. Twenty years old, such a young girl. So wise for her years. This human form, we all make mistakes. That is the sad part, and that is also the gratitude part as I have discovered a deeper connection to a very special world that I could have never known without Phoebe’s presence, (living and after living).
I sigh and catch up with our small crew. They are waiting right where I knew they would. Oliver is standing next to a cliff and asks me if he can slide down it. I answer no. This is the way over here. We walk down a trial to the beach. It’s sketchy in places. It is a full moon and I tell everyone to remember this trail because we’re going to walk back up without flashlights. “Just the light of the moon.” What they all exclaim incredulous. I start the fire. The girls are playing near the water collecting and frolicking the way fifteen year old girls can. So knowing and wise one moment, so young and excited the next. I see so much joy in them it hurts my chest. Walking down the beach are some friends of mine. They have two wolves with them.
They are amazing people who do powerful healing work. The wolves I know since they were only few pounds and were asleep on my chest. They are amazing and large beasts. I call Oliver over and we sit on a log. The wolves know me and they drag over my friends to come check us out. Masai out weighs Oliver by 50 lbs. My friend tells Oliver not to be afraid and gives him a treat to offer the beautiful animal. Oliver is amazed that a wild animal like a wolf is in front of him. Masai sniffs him. “Go ahead feed him.” Masai takes the jerky treat, gives a small nudge with his snout and leaves. Oliver is spinning in delight. The animals take his steward towards the water. The girls don’t look up, so transfixed in their search for jade, agates, beach glass and other magical jewels. The wolves approach them. Oliver is yelling, “Hey there are wolves hey there are wolves.!” The wolves are near them
but the girls don’t look up. Just for this instance I have to laugh. Cleo and Atlalie are in their own private world of discovery. A young boy has just fed a wolf on a remote northern California beach held by one of the most profound shamans on the west coast. The wolves are a few feet away from the girls but the never see them. They didn’t need too. All gifts filter through us and we see them and understand them on a need to know basis… Faith is understanding that the gifts are always waiting for us to find them. It is magic. It is simply a rock in the shape of something you need. Or a friendly black beast saying hello on a far away beach.
The fire is at it’s peak. We are here together. This is a moment. So much love. The fire is getting big and the coals are getting ready to cook. The girls return baring their treasures. Excited to start their new jewelry line, they are dreaming of a beautiful future. We set everything out on the alter. Make food to eat. Drink champagne and carbonated apple juice. Write things on paper, things we love and things we release. We throw them in the fire. We wrap ourselves in blankets and watch the flames and tell stories and laugh and even cry a bit. The moon rises up over the cliff and it’s like someone has turned a light on. Then it is time to go.
We gather the stuff up and Jenny and I take a few moments to make sure we have everything. The kids check in for a moment and then disappear. Walking back in the moonlight. I feel light. Their is so much happiness and discovery happening around me. For all of us. The trail in the moonlight is lit with no color but everything is visible. The kids are waiting a the top of the cliff. I’m looking up at them. The moon is filtering through the clouds with an opalescent glow around it. They are silhouette in the moon light. I art direct them to take poses and take photos‌
They are impatient… but when I show them the photos they all ooh and awe… “Wow! Those are magical.” We walk back in the moonlight. Sometimes the best memories are the simplest things. Small Rocks in the shape of whales or a heart. First time walking under a full moon on a beach, a perfect fire.... laughter and joy. Sometimes it is that easy.
