The feet I see when I look down are not the same feet that were there a year ago. Those feet lived a cloistered life, kept sheltered from the world within shoes and socks. They were mismatched with their adjoining limbs, a pale and delicate distant relative of the feet I now have. They have been replaced by a pair of brown feet, rich as Manuka honey and washed clean by the ocean every day. They now transition seamlessly to my ankles and legs, like they are part of the one, not an attachment. They appear much more capable, and indeed they are. The soles of my new feet have been rubbed smooth over many months of barefoot wandering. From the yellow sands of Fiji, to the black volcanic beaches of Vanuatu, the white powder of New Caledonian atolls and the pebbly coarseness of the New Zealand coast, each step with Nature has left its mark. As they feel different to touch so too does a touch feel different. Exposure has worn them down yet created a protective barrier against the land beneath me. Possibly, I could take up fire walking.
At the other end of my body Nature has also left her mark. My hair has recovered the golden hues of childhood, dispelling those myths that our hair loses its richness of colour as we age, rather we let our time spent outside slip away from us. On passages, Dolphin curls up in my arms and rests her head on my shoulder, letting my hair mingle with hers. No longer is there need to ponder where the colour in her hair comes from as the shades of sunset live equally in both of us. The patches of grey are still with me; I have not gone so far as Dorian Gray in my journey back in time, but the blond from sun time hides them well. It has been ten months since my hair was cut, so my style has by default become windswept and salt slicked; there is no fighting the strong gusts that whip the ocean into a frenzy and send sea spray over me.
I have been physically changed by the elements, so it prompts me to question if my reacquaintance with Nature has changed me in other ways. I am made up of all that flows to me from thousands of sources, and with the built world receding from my range of influence, Nature has been allowed to get the upper hand. She is a powerful force, one which I can’t influence, and she has shaped the rhythm of each day for me. I hope I have taken from this experience a little more patience, the ability to relinquish some control and the flexibility to adapt more willingly to a new path I hadn’t planned on travelling. When you stop fighting the omnipotence of Nature and surrender to her higher power there comes a sense of peace and your energy is working with, rather than against her.
I love my new feet and hair and how they have been transformed by the elements just as the land around me has. I feel closer to the bare coastline that is moulded by the relentless assault of water, wind and sun; we are both bleached, shaped and washed clean by the same forces, we have a bit of common ground. For thousands of years Nature has driven the imagination, language, song, dance and story of humans, so it makes sense that we don’t lose touch.
You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here. Alan Watt