#writealm Day 4. 🙂

This is my neighbor’s magical, singing tree. It harmonizes with the wind blowing through its soft needles, and it sings to me of somewhere far from our high desert home in the southwest; somewhere it has never been, but the wind has. It’s song is the song of the sea, evoking in me memories of beaches on the cold north Atlantic…memories of…

…waves lapping at the sand, moving up the shore in response to the pull of the moon, water so cold that you have to dunk yourself and stay submerged from the neck down until your body is numb and then you can swim for hours, sand so hot you wished you’d tied flip-flops to your bathing suit because it’s not possible to run fast enough or tip-toe lightly enough to escape it’s burning touch…

The beach, a rainbow of bathing suits, towels, umbrellas, chairs, ice chests (they call them cool chests here in the sw), and radios, all tuned to different stations. Some are rudely blaring, others are just loud enough for the immediate listeners. The smell of hot dogs bought from the vendor on the street above, seagulls circling while on the lookout for abandoned or dropped food, children shouting with joy and laughter – or crying from sheer exhaustion, parents calling out in warning to be careful, and the lifeguard’s whistle jolting us out of our sun-drenched stupor.

The sun, oh the sun…soaking into us, tanning – or burning – our skin as it passes through, melting our bones into such sweet lethargy, filling us with heat so strong that we fear we will melt into the sand, or, heaven forbid, spontaneously combust.

And underneath it all, this magical, wonderful tree sings to me the song that is just at the edge of my hearing at all times even though I now live so far from its source; it’s the deep lullaby of Mama Yemaya. Mother Ocean, in all her glory, calls to me, beckoning me home, soothing me with her message of peace, compassion…and love.

©Pip Miller – November 2014