Twice every day the water of the sea runs her fingers through the sand, leaving tell-tale patterns. These repeating patterns display in clear sight some of the hidden energies within the water. Everything the water touches is changed in some small way by the interaction, but often we can’t see or don’t notice.
On this stretch of sand the sweet fresh water of a stream carves a channel into the sand each day. It’s pattern and shape reveal the flow of the energy running from the land into the salty waves. Twice in the day it’s pattern is lost, washed away into the body of the sea, unneeded as the ocean licks the stream bed in the rocks above the tideline. Yet it’s shape persists as the moon driven tides surge and fall in their own steady patterns.
Here the firmly held shape of sandstone rocks merges into the shifting free grains of sand, with no clear edge. The energy of the waves rubs gently but persistently at the rocks edges. The green seaweed holds onto water for a while, after the rain falls or the tide drops. Slowly the water is released, leaving trailing patterns running from the rock into the soft sand. Every drop merging back into the body of the ocean.
Just like the water, we leave patterns and trails around us as we move through the world. Sometimes we have repeating patterns which flow from us over and over. Patterns of action, emotion and thought, filling the spaces around us. These patterns in turn touch and effect everything they come into contact with. They flow into the lives and worlds of others, sometimes unnoticed, unseen, unrecognised, and yet powerful.
All of us have an effect on the world and those in it, even when we say or do nothing. Silence makes its own patterns and soothing shapes. Stopping for a while to see if we can notice any of the clues around us can in itself re-shape the patterns around us. I always feel a little different when I have slowed down and taken the time to look at what might be unfolding around me. Mindfulness brings me into a deeper recognition and connection with life itself.
You can see more photographs of patterns at the Weekly Photo Challenge.
And more photos of beaches at Ailsa’s Where’s My Backpack Challenge.
breathofgreenair 