Point Reyes Beach

Point Reyes Beach
7 miles
4 hours
Start: North Beach Parking Lot
End: North Beach Parking Lot
Includes: Point Reyes Beach, South Beach, Sir Francis Drake

Hike 17
April 5, 2013
Three of Cups
Friendship

The three-of-cups shows three women dancing in a circle, raising cups in a toast. They are configured much the same as the Three Graces in various works of art. The Graces are Greek goddesses representing qualities such as beauty, charm and creativity.

Pondering this card, I went to the Great Point Reyes Beach on a Friday afternoon. It had been rainy for a week, so we postponed the morning walk. It eventually cleared-up and I decided to do a long loop from the North Beach parking lot to the South Beach parking lot, via the beach, and back, via the road. The total walk was around 7 miles.

I was in a spacey mood: my routine disturbed by spring break at my boy's school. I was happy to have a long stretch of uninterrupted afternoon to stroll and ponder. They call Point Reyes Beach the great beach for a reason. It is a long, wide expanse facing the open ocean.

Signs warn of sneaker waves and the deadly undertow. Every year someone dies here, underestimating the power of nature. The afternoon started gray and wet.

Everywhere great snarls of bullwhip kelp were washed ashore like art objects from the Creator. Since I was alone, I allowed my mind to wander below the obvious associations of friendship. What I found at the bottom, the base, was nature.

The Three Graces are usually depicted naked or lightly draped; they have nothing to hide. They are enjoying their own inherent perfection and because they are free to be themselves, they naturally allow others the same freedom. They have no expectations, only pure pleasure in shared friendship of the moment.

Nature is a soothing friend, providing solace when human concerns become burdensome. Nature is like the Three Graces, naked, unaffected, accepting, without artifice or expectation.

Nature includes all creatures. Seagulls and seals do not judge. We have no expectations of them.

I further extended the thought to include human creatures.

This terrain looks familiar. It looks like the place where we set humans outside nature. Our culture has long told us we are greater than the beasts and have dominion over them. This message sent us down a destructive path. The silver lining is we can now see the consequences and change direction.

What we can do now is let the continuum of nature proceed unobstructed to embrace humans. We are unique among other creatures in our ability to create, but we are not set above, beyond, or outside of nature.

By embracing humans as natural, it is possible to extend good feelings towards them. This means human friendship is as easy as a walk on the beach.

Nature can be unpredictable, irritating and deadly, but do we blame her for this? No! We just accept that this is how she is and at the same time, she is beautiful. She is perfect. Humans are the same.

If we come to each other naked with the same acceptance of ourselves and each other as we give to nature, we can truly enjoy friendship. Analyzing friendship can get very psychological, looking for motives and payoffs. When the goal is to commune with others, strategizing takes us off the mark. When we are lonely, what we really want is to share space and time with others, to see others and be seen for who we truly are.

Each of us is perfect. Our capacity to commune with others is in direct proportion to our ability to let ourselves be seen. This brings us back to nakedness. As we become naked, we allow others to do the same. We open to the experience of humanity. Remembering our humanity in the natural continuum gives us strength.

I resolve to let others see me as I have let the sand and sky see me today. When others look at me, they will see themselves, because we are all the same. We are nature. We are kin and we are perfect.