Mystic Beach – January 2022
Until now Mystic Beach has been a name on a map that conjured images: glittering vistas, sea breezes, the white manes of a thunderous surf.
The young woman we met at the trail head told us the hike was not too difficult. Some ups and downs, exposed roots, puddles and mud, nothing worth a fret. She and her frisking, mini Labradoodle have not yet conceived the true meaning of fate.
We wondered how it must have been for First Peoples to traverse this place, before the scrape of human infrastructure made it easy for our invasive species to cross its gullies, breach clinging underbrush, reach sacred strands?
Down, down, down we went. Our deepening descent staked by snaking steps and ramps, which would have to be retraced in an uphill climb… when we’d be left behind by younger sprites, sprinting by in the fast lane, leaving us to complain about weary muscles, creaking bones.
Down, down, down into our vision we homed, seeking that place that astounded, where senses are confounded, and the promise of wonder becomes a something known.
And, Oh! What a sight it was. Not the Vatican, or Taj Mahal, or an interminable, stone-faced wall marking boundaries between us and them, but a thrashing, crashing place where ocean, land and sky converge, making sense of an inner urge.
As always, wherever human feet have trod, there’s monuments to past descents, marking the supposed extent of human mind. Mystic Beach? There’s a thousand of its kind, a thousand more inspired vistas to be seen. But none that I have dreamed.
CSW