No amount of darkness can bring on the fear that the woods brings when hiking the beach anytime of the day or the night. Perhaps its just we enjoy what we know, we only fear that which we do not know or for that matter understand.

Since I was four years old I walked the beach for miles upon miles, even at that young & ripe age I skirted the shoreline from my home to the next town. In the darkness my fears were subsided by my mother ocean, pounding against my beach, Northeast winds bringing with it salted spray. NOTHING there could harm me, I was in my mothers safe arms, she would not allow the worlds insanity to hurt me. Surely she too had her temper tantrums, a storm when I was but seven made me a bit more fearful of her might. That first night even as the house shook, and other homes were ripped from their foundations, my house was left relatively unscathed. That was mom ocean protecting her young and I slept through it all with nary a whimper.

The fear I’ve felt walking in the woods, or in cities NEVER seemed to arise when on my beach I did trod. Standing on the seawall with storm waves blowing up and around me, only brought to me a feeling of power of desiring to be one with her. She did nurture me when I was young, and help me to grow & knew when I left, that back I would come, one day. For none of us can be away from their mothers long, be they human or Nature. Others talk of their relationships with their mothers & I say so very little. As my mother is made of salt & water, sand & shell, my mother is the ocean, of that to others I will always tell.

© ed ~~~~~ February 23, 2009