Skin & Bark and Sand & Water

Notes from the lagoons, a short Film, the suspended unravel.

I’ve been walking the lagoons again. Most times in rain. Sometimes in wind-howl. Mud in my toenails, ripples in the fields of waves. The pregnant NOW that thrums the dreaming that is this place. Thread and weave and careful, as I scan and step and navigate these shifting tidal sandscapes.

A few days ago something undulates under my foot just before I put my weight on it. And I gasp. Stand stunned at what it probably was. Stingray. Grateful I am not standing speared in shin. I keep walking . . . and later I see three Eastern Shovel Nose Rays. Separate individuals. Aptychotrema rostrata.

There are no photos. I stand and gawp. On this particular occasion, the second individual pauses in its swim-away. Turns. Comes back to me. Right up close. Looks at me. ‘Hi Darling’.

The immense privilege.

What I did photograph was light on mother of pearl water-skin.
Sand.
Both together.
What I did photograph, was something that Shimmered:

A Woman of the Sea, in Eclipse.

She is

Sub-merged. Beneath form. Still…