The Vast, Immortal Sea. July 4. Day 13. Part 1

Dear Trail Friends

I am sitting in my tent at the unusually lovely hiker biker camp at Beverly Beach State Park. I can hear ravens and songbirds but no fireworks yet. It's 7:40, still very light.  Photo 1 is a collage of the views from my tent's front and back doors/windows. 

 

I slept late this morning and didn't begin my hike until almost 10am. I hiked at a leisurely pace and took two long rest stops. Tomorrow I will hike into Newport to meet Chris and we will drive together to Agate Beach to meet up with my brother Bob, sister-in-law Madeline and their three children Matthew (not a child, he's in college now), Gabriel (also no longer a child, a teenager) and Rebecca (not far behind them.) Madeline texted me a couple of days ago that they were doing a road trip in Oregon and maybe we could connect. I am thrilled that we can. After that visit,  Chris and I will head to Corvallis to spend the evening and overnight with our dear friends Chuck and Shelly Duffy. 

It's funny - I love this hike but I am very eager to see Chris again and have been counting the days. 

This morning began at my very leisurely pace with a walk north through Depoe Bay. Photo 2 is probably the only spouting whale I will see on this trip, though I do keep my eyes hopefully gazing into the distance in this area which is a whale watching destination. 

 

Not far from the beach whale was a memorial to two men who died at sea on a rescue mission. It ends with a poem but no attribution. I tried googling it but every single reference was to this memorial. I wonder who wrote it. 

 

I don't know if you can read it in the photo: It is not true. Life is not slain by death./ The vast immortal sea shall have her own/ Shall garner to her this expiring breath/ Shall reap what she has sown. 

Any guesses who wrote it?

The walk began with a trail along 101. Like yesterday's trail, it was sometimes interesting and a little challenging at to follow. It was a little overgrown in places - enough that I suspect if it isn't maintained it will soon disappear. I wrote an email to Depoe Bay Chamber of Commerce urging them to find someone who might take on the project of coordinating volunteers to maintain it. I argued so convincingly that thru-hikers were good for the town economy (eating at restaurants, staying at hotels, shopping at stores - without straining scarce parking resources) that I even persuaded myself. Photo  4 is the over-grown trail. 

 

This part of the walk was a continuing meditation on the proximity of highway (with the roar of whizzing cars and fumes), green world (with deep silence and stillness) and ocean (with its own roar of waves crashing against rocks). I thought of Milton Erickson's brilliant hypnotic inductions in which he often makes use of seemingly mutually exclusive opposites " and you can experience excruciating pain in your chest and the delicate pleasure of the breath passing in and going out, both at the very same time" to induce an "altered" consciousness state, one not based on the verbal either/or that is one of the foundations for rational, verbal, conscious thought. I also thought of Chris, famous among her students as the lady of "both/and" (as opposed to either/or - though Erickson would suggest you can experience both/and and either/or, both at the very same time...). Such games create category confusion but they do more than that. They free the mind for adventures - to enter new and unknown states of being. 

Photo 5 is a collage of views - on my left, through the green, glimpses (and sound) of cars and trucks rushing by on the freeway. On my right glimpses (and occasionally sound) of water and crashing waves. 

 

I stopped for a rest stop at a secluded picnic table with an incredible view. There I sat and watched the waves smash against rocks. I watched the plumes of foam plunge forward and up - it's a wild visual display, in its way as amazing as fireworks. For me that collision of waves against rocks had an erotic quality. As if the water were fiercely and tenderly caressing the rocks. And while the rocks seem constant and the water fluid and changing, over time and slowly the rocks are reshaped by the water. I remember the larg vboulder at the beach below my grandfather's house in La Jolla, California. To a child of five, that rock seemed huge and immovable (sort of the way parents seem to small children). When I returned in my late 20s it was, simply, gone. It had been washed away. 

I loved watching the waves and the rocks, thinking of aspects of myself that are more like the waves, or the rocks, and watching them making love. 

Photo 6 is that view from my rest stop. 

 

Then the walk went on to a point called Rocky Creek with a whole series of viewpoints and walkways from one viewpoint to the next. There I met two young men from the former East Germany near Berlin. They were planning to visit Orcas and I would have loved to offer them hospitality, but of course I would not be home to do so. I love that the trail ( and the examples of the trail angels I meet) makes me want to offer kindness to strangers I meet. It's a wonderful feeling, wanting to be of service. 

Photo 7 is a collage of photos (I think) from Rocky Creek. You know I can't really remember what's what. Anyway they give you a taste of my beautiful walk in this beautiful day through this beautiful part of the world. 

 

To be continued in: The Vast, Immortal Sea. July 4, Day 13, Part 2.