The El Nino storms hit Klamath, California hard on Thursday. La Tortue trembled in the force of the wind. Rain pounded on the roof, waking me in the dead of the night. Miraculously, I lay warm and dry. (Thank goodness I am getting too old for tent camping.)
For the next several days, I watched the Klamath River run thick as milk. At the river’s mouth, waves from the Pacific ocean curled sideways to greet its outward flow.
During those rainy days, I learned from the Yurok and Tolowa tribes. They are World Renewal People, whose deeply held tradition asks them to dance each year for the remaking of their own hearts — and for the ecosystem in which they live.
On Sunday, I drove south to Patrick Point State Park — located just above Trinidad, California on a high bluff. I followed a steep path down to the beach to watch the waves. There, I discovered pockets of agates dressing the shore. Low tides exposed many of the glistening, colourful rocks.
While I walked on the shore, the waves rose, curled, washed up and receded. The cycle began again. Water rises, curls, washes up and recedes. Here is renewal, expressed in the rhythms of the ocean.
I am reading a gem of a book, Walking in Beauty,by Harry K. Roberts. Roberts lived with and learned from the Yurok people as a child. He observes: “Sea Foam is a bit of ocean captured by the wind….a bit of wind captured by the ocean.
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