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Crystalline
Tomorrow I will visit my Dad. A long drive away, to the facility where he has been these past two years. A dementia ‘secure’ building, in residential care. Nowhere near the beach; where his body breathes like the marine mammal he is. He tells me he swims (I wish!) and he walks (which he no longer can). He thinks he lives with his girlfriend and her dog (which obviously, he doesn’t). Yet, his joy is one of radiance to match the seawater he wears in his eyes.
This man, who taught me to stand on cliff edges, read currents and tides and winds; my first ocean ecology teacher. Who showed me how to catch a wave, what to touch and not to touch (‘not the pretty wee octopus with neon blue rings, girl!’) and how to gauge a shark’s friendliness (I’m still learning that one).
This man, whose umbilicus is attached to the crystalline sea.
Here is what is I wish for you
I wish you could know that the photons who spin and spiral through you, incarnating your native Joy, are present in all water.
And that you are Water.
I wish you to know that the Light that funnels through your microtubles in each cell is, in fact, generated by you (biomedical scientific fact). That they are you.
That you are indeed, Light.
And I yearn for you to remember that the Sound in a seashell is the sound of the everywhen of Home. The Sound of consciousness - of the One who is All things all times all places all at once:
This, is you!
It is all of us.
Photographing Water. Imaging Sand. Breathing Light
Water.
Sand.
Atmos of Light and Sound and Wind and Humidity and Temperature.
We are surrounded by a Library of script-ure. It interpenetrates us. Subatomic particles do not know the ‘skin’.
We breathe water (else we would die). Our fascia knows the Patterns in sand as instinctively as a child knows Love.
I make photos of water and of sand because I cannot help myself (apparently). It’s like I’m forever light-drawing a map Home, on repeat.
This Year
has been deeply challenged.
My teeth have demineralised. (Hello my new friend that is The Dentist).
So have my facial bones. Along with my spine and ribs.
There was a basal cell carcinoma concern. (sorted).
A flare up of the Thyroid autoimmune phenomenon that is Hashimotos.
An oesophageal spasming that left me struggling to swallow, breathe and ground from panic; a result of significant gerd. (still sorting).
And the ongoing navigation that is CPTSD.
When what I really I wanted was the healing balm of Beach and walking, I’ve chosen the available-to-me tiny Backyard. Generously fringed by Trees and Sky and Birds. And I’ve begun a tiny foray of movement and breath. Not the usual yoga and dance that’s been how I’ve known myself these past six decades, but the sublime feet on grass and weight shift and trailing arms that trace galaxies. And sound. The delicious grounding of an exhaled ‘ahhhh’.
(NOT my Backyard)
I’ve been resting. Allowing the depths of cellular replenishment that is ‘convalescence’. Propped up on the couch and pretending to be a sea mammal resting on sand. Releasing to gravity. Fully. Feeling my organs truly settle into my pelvic bowl. Reading. Doing nothing. Looking at the cat. Napping!
It’s divine.
I am healing.
And occasionally, I continue to curate The Saltwater Songlines. Slow as molasses. So now The Altar has been added to the completed four Rooms in Hall 1. And a new (unplanned) space, Anteroom is a new canvas in preparation.
Thinking I had it all ‘worked out’, I realise that things are shifting for me. I’m still processing what that might look like. How The Saltwater Songlines Project might now become available to you. And, how the Saltwater Songlines itself, wants to flow to you!
Thank you to the two folk who honoured the honour system of the preview of Room 3. You know who you are and my deep appreciation to you.
Because the reality is: this is my work.
Turns out I do need to honour my own work and actually ask for money.
Which brings me to:
I have turned on Substack subscriptions. Know that all of the content here on my Substack will continue to be free of a paywall for you. Everyone has access to the images, words, videos; the capacity to comment etc.
Signing up as a paid subscriber (versus a free subscriber), simply means you are offering myself, my work and indeed my capacity to work, support.
Truly, you have no idea what this means to me and I am grateful.
Books I recently read and loved . . .
‘Bright Shining - How Grace Changes Everything’, Julia Baird
‘Returning Light - 30 Years of Life on Skellig Michael’, Robert L Harris
‘Recovery - The Lost Art of Convalescence’, Dr Gavin Francis
The images in this post are made on Yugumbeh Country. 2018-2023.
A place my family visited each year for a decade or more when I was a child.
A second Home. And, where my Dad is . . .
thank you for your beautiful clarity Narelle xx