From the trail we clamber down to the beach. Garnet tinged, purple sand flows through the normal white stuff. Violet brush strokes swirl around green jade look-a-like rocks. Not an average beach.
Noël finds a perfect little abalone shell on the sand, slaps it in my hand and calls it my paycheck. A big rock shelf means radical tidepools, some deep and wide enough to paddle around in. Vast hermit crab and anemone civilizations have thrived in these shallows for centuries, and yet no monuments or temples have been erected, at least none that I can discern. Maybe the temples are in the shells, or maybe the whole place is a temple.
A seaweed-filled ravine cuts right down the middle of the rock jetty. It seems just the right kind of place to find another abalone shell, and lo-and-behold there’s a great big one a few feet away. When I tell Noël that I saw the shell before I actually saw it, she says matter-of-factly “why does that surprise you at this point?” Sometimes I forget about the world’s majik until it is dropped right in my lap.
Around the bend we find a tiny cave. We sing inside it, playing with the tones, feeling out which ones resonate in the space. The song brings on slow languid movement, and rock on rock drumming. Every sound and sign just right for the moment. Good shamanism, which is to say: good playful and loving engagement with the spirit of that place, with our spirits in that place. A fine gesture of cave/man love.
We’re all smiles when we get out, I hope the cave smiles too. I stare at the sky and it subtly flashes, kind of a “yes” flash, affirmative pulse from the sunset. Behind us a weird mark is set in the sky. A vertical cloud line, like the vapor trail from a plane, but upright, like a rocket’s trail. An optical illusion, a meteor, a spaceship? The trail/cloud is gone in a few minutes, evidence wiped clean by the wind. Aliens, meteors or men: the Sky is indifferent, and, come to think of it, so am I. Cavesongs seem so much more important.
The trail fills up with scattering bunnies for the hike back. Polyphonic owl hoots sound majikally from a eucalyptus grove, a three-tone hoot that boggles my mind. My first thought is of a giant spectral owl. Eventually the mystery unravels. There are really three owls hooting in different pitches. Somehow they managed to call out in perfect unison, giving the impression of a supernatural hoot. Amazingly this happened twice in a row before the band broke up.
A skunk waddles at full speed in front of us, zigzagging – evasive tactics. He leaves just a splash of mercaptan (skunk spray) behind him, just in case there was any confusion. “Don’t know if you noticed the stripes chums… can’t be too careful.”
A fox dashes across the highway as we drive home, barely more than a flash in the headlights. Our last visitation from the twilight kingdom. Goodnight Majik.
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