Collecting Shells

A practice of recognition

I didn’t have a *good* summer, whatever that means… there was lots of good (which I wrote about some weeks ago), but this particular season hasn’t unfolded in a way that felt particularly good.

Now, as summer sunsets, I find myself walking on a British beach with my young family, contemplating recent happenings… Since I was a girl, collecting shells has served as one of my most treasured, meditative practices.

It is, like most practices, an act of paying attention.

Clear path at my bare feet
paved by hidden treasures
knowings
crouching down
caressing the texture of my life
legs stretching long
well prepared by my yoga mat

Suspended in empty space
even as I scan the damp abundance below
reflecting back the colors 
of the sun and sky 
thoughts rise and fall
crash and recede 
breath steadies into center
like sitting on a meditation cushion
or watching the sea
everything else falling away

I look up I see my son son following in my wake
my daughter shadowing me
feeling the familiar grooves of cockles, whelks in my hand
as quieting
into remembrance of myself
a gentle recognition
of what I know
how to see and feel

And I whisper to the sea, in gratitude
Release it
Release it
Release it

I’ll put the shells from this summer into a glass jar on my desk, a reminder of judgements made and released, and the ease that comes with that recognition.

What are your most enduring practices of recognition — of coming into yourself, into balance? What does your version of collecting shells look and feel like?