You might call it slowly destructive, but you might also see in shoreline erosion that the variable cycles of sea energy help the shore gain a kind of wisdom. The land recognizes that the ocean, although aggressive as it cracks upon the sand, is its cohort. The rock promintories take the rougher assaults, where the surf is higher, which results in fragments that return to nourish the beaches or build the sandbars. The shoreline is created by the force of the breakers and the shoreline is as ageless as the sea. Not one without the other.
In the Summer, sand is deposited off shore to those sandbars with the gentler winds and waves. Strong Winter Northeasters bring the sand and sediment back to the shore and cause some higher segments of the beach, dunes, to erode. This thins the beach overall. But the wise sandbars, built in the summer, mitigate further shoreline erosion during the winter months by causing many waves to break further from the shore. This relationship is like that of the cohorts of the body and the mind. When one is burdened the other assists, moving the body or mind to take a break, step away or protect the overall ecosystem from one or the other’s central preoccupations. It lets things productively change and heal. The regulation of further erosion provided by sandbars built in the summer is a metaphor for the reserve of counterbalancing energy humankind has always needed to get through our winters.
Haiku a day until Midwinter
haiku: monterry winter
a mind freshly wringed
kindly salted erosion
balms greeting the shore
Wild, Abandoned: 2021 