By: SB
Golden spirals cover the cave ceiling. Raggedy golden seaweed growing there. Glass smooth shiny black pillars support the cave, which slopes back into living rock. A sea temple, open to air and sunshine and me for a few hours; wet, cold, the temperature of the ocean. Everything here belongs to the ocean.
When a series of coincidences/synchronicities showed me record low tides were coming, I wondered what would be uncovered, within me also as the ocean withdrew from the land. What revealed that was hidden in my own mysterious depths. I hoped for dazzling colours such as the walls of gold, Etruscan red, ivory, fluorescent pink starfish that surprised me once around a grey rock corner. I feared razorsharp grey rock mounds.
Excitingly, surprisingly, the sea caves called me. The plane of our solar system was tilted at its lowest angle, so was the moon's path. Our whole solar system was doing something extraordinary. And the way this would be visible was the low tides, the hidden places revealed for such a little while. If the Sea Goddess was going to show us something, I definitely wanted to be there to see it. I planned a ritual bringing fire, flowers, my life, to this dark cold water place; bringing the elements of Fire, Air.
I scrambled down a dark slippery almost vertical slope for hours to get there. The inner voice that brought me there reminded me this was a once in a lifetime chance. It sensibly told me to concentrate to find the way, be careful and check out each foot and hand hold, and don't give up. Getting there was an ordeal that seemed fitting. Always, before hiking a mountain or ocean area I ask the spirit of the place for permission. Sometimes the answer is no, and I turn back. My answer here was 'only this time'. I learned there that I can do things I never thought I could, things that were way too frightening even to try. Some deeper part of me came out. Now, I want to live from this depth as much as I can.
On the beach I froze when I saw a featureless slope of evergreens and an equally featureless stone beach with driftwood right at the treeline, tossed there by waves. I had to be able to find the only possible route up that steep slope. Miraculously, an Inuksuk caught my eye; the vaguely human shaped stone formations found in the arctic. A comforting reminder that others had passed this way.
The caves are on a ledge about 1 km. long, backed by a cliff. The ledge stretched flatly out into the ocean for city blocks. Water sparkled in shallow bowls, the ocean was way out, winds swirled over the straits and the Olympic mountains were clear on the other side. I chose the lowest tide to be there, as the safest time. I wandered through a series of caves, each larger and longer. And then I heard a thundering rumble and saw the ocean rise up, it just lifted into the sky and came toward me. I must have levitated off the ledge because suddenly I was on the beach again. I tried again and retreated again; gave up, sat down and ate my power bar, drank a bottle of water - and watched a force of nature dance with invisible forces. Powers beyond. The ocean was reclaiming its places, and the moon was stopping it. The ocean rose up in a way I've never seen before and came full tilt at the land, and then stopped as though it had hit a wall - a wall made from all the other planets in our solar system pointing "downhill". So I went back, to the farthest, largest cave and sat down. Images flooded me - of our ancestors migrating out of Africa, following the sea coasts, moon and sea and stars everything to them.
Prayers I didn't understand burbled up in me. In some way, I still grasp why blue is sacred in the east. I glimpsed something whose last echo is Star of the Sea. I "knew" that once Priestesses had stood in caves like this at rare times like this. Something warm and quiet filled me. I knew absolutely that I was safe. Something behind Symbols of Moon, Ocean, Cave, came close. That inner voice spoke for the last time, asking me if I wanted to dedicate myself. The invisible wall was close to the cave by then. Sacrifice flickered through my mind. The calm and quiet smiled into my fear and repeated the question. I said yes. I sat there with that Presence until the ocean came near the cave entrance and then calmly walked away. The door was closing. A last gift wafted me back up that mountain face.
I forgot the candles and the flowers and the dance. The gift I brought there was the flame of my own life. I was Fire, Air. The gift I received was participating with incomprehensible forces made visible, ancient species memory uncovered, finding that depth of self and especially the calm warm voice. I participated in a ritual held so long ago we have only fragmented echoes left, scraps of memory - but still the power to call me.
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