When comes the tide, the sun and moon push the sea up and down our shores. At high water, sometimes as we walk the beach we find Neptune’s gifts. They might be items from the deep dislodged from the ocean floor, or something lost overboard by a passing vessel, or a gnarled root torn from the firmament to weather in the wind and salt, or anything of interest drifting unknown distances from remote places.

As a Alaskan homestead child, when the chores were done, I wandered, swam and played at the water’s edge with my siblings. When we entered the cold water, our beloved canine companion “Pal” oversaw our flailing attempts at swimming as if we were small bottles with secret notes splashing our way with others to landfall. In their time, all gifts of the sea arrive ashore where a beachcomber might find them. Some are left alone or never found. The first pair of eyes on the beach might notice some of them. Others lay unrecognized, passed over by many, until discovered by discerning glances. Still others hide in debris and kelp where placed at the furthest reach of the flood, as if to ensure they do not wash out to sea once more. We who splash in the waters and comb the beach seek simple pleasures. Perhaps we will find an innocent, delicate treasure like an unbroken sand dollar, a perfect sea urchin, a handmade Asian glass float or a note in a bottle from far away and long ago. Many such have come to my shore.

Then the tide turns and begins the ebb. Beachcombers may leave to return when next the flood swells. Perhaps they believe the best treasures are found when the tide is high. Those who remain follow the receding water in silent reverence and veneration as if the beach were a virgin in a secluded boudoir temporarily and innocently undressed in preparation for her debutant gown. Hidden rocks, sacred crevasses, covered contours, sculpted sand, and tidal pools, in beautiful virtuous splendor strewn with shells, snails, fish, and other mysteries are exposed until the sun and moon again push the sea as a fluid gown to re-clothe their lady. When open to the elements our senses are filled with the riches of the beach: the vision of barnacled rocks and sand; the odors and fragrances of the saline marine air; and, the raw, untempered sounds of life taking and making itself from the sea. Like us, the vocal gulls and other birds follow the tide seeking morsels left for their discovery. In our curiosity, we may here and there turn over a piece of driftwood, a rock or vacant shell to see what life scurries for a new sanctuary before the gulls find it.

It has been said: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. We must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.” The Bard was only partly correct when he wrote that. Fortunes are there during both the floods and ebbs. Floods may well lead on to a certain destiny. And ebbs may lead to hidden, sometimes vulnerable and equally valuable treasures, often unavailable at, or concealed by, floods.

Now comes Winter Solstice. The sun pushes its illumination dimly and diagonally against our seasonal Earthly tilt and the moon seems larger in the more enduring night. It is the ebb of solar tide, when the darkness left by the receding Sol leaves an unveiled beach of empty trees, sculpted snow and frozen rivers strewn with the debris of summer’s past life. Another debutant awaits her dress. In its time, the Sun’s flood will again return the high light of summer and re-clothe the land in splendid color. But now, at the ebb we walk winter’s low light beach seeking the tide’s gifts. What might they be? They will be different for each of us. Blown by an errant breeze, a brown leaf may tumble against the snow’s drifting countenance in spontaneous and subtle redesign of its textured surface. Excited by Solar Wind, the Aurora may extend luminous, diaphanous curtains to sparkle against the hoary crystals of frigid arctic air. Lifted by the hand of hunger a snowshoe hare may leave distinctive, hopping prints leading to a midnight snack of gnawed willow bark. Filled with mystery, cheeks pink with the chill of exertion, I may stand on a pinnacle surveying behind and below me: the path of my life. These are gifts of my beach. You will find yours. Nevertheless, they are not those one puts in pockets nor wraps in boxes. They are illuminated treasures of experience, privately projected on one’s cerebral screen of reminiscence. Some lay ignored or unrecognized as if they never occurred and remain unwitnessed or unnoticed save by those inquisitive few who venture their way. Some are hidden in the debris and defrocked brush where the solstice dark is deepest as if they were treasures preserved only for the eyes of spring and summer or those who remain at the ebb to seek them.

We add our prints to the snow and the sands of the beach. We inhale the salt air and let our breath mingle with the wind blowing from the sea. We scan the cavities and depressions beneath the boughs and drifts, and under the rocks and seaweed. We drink from twinkling Ursa Major as steady Polaris guides us between gently waving spruce and gnarled barren alder, both laden with snow. These are currents of our tides: the forces of eternity that have always pushed and pulled us, and of which we are an eternal part. We know as the ebb breathes out an inhaling flood must follow. Quietly within ourselves the tide turns and a new surge begins. But here at Winter solstice, when the tide is lowest perhaps we’ll find an insight, an unspoken treasure or a secret truth uncovered when our virgin beach is exposed. The tide is changing. As we comb the beach, perhaps your bottle and note will be cast upon my shores, or mine will drift quietly up on yours.

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