I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the nature of this coast.
Technically I suppose it’s due to aspect and depth and enclosure.
Basically it’s a right-royal, powerful, and generous bit of space.
The shoreline faces the North, whilst the energetic blast of a gale usually starts in the South and then swings clockwise, often losing vigour by the time it veers to the NorthWest & then the North.
We have had more Northerlies in recent years, but this Summer its gone back to old ways.
-Now any wind with North in its name is shocking in the fury it awakens in this sea.
The fetch here sweeps straight down the Irish Sea.
However, they don’t usually last long.
but I stillI dread them.
The depth here means pots can be close in and don’t seem to shift much. Also there seem to be glutinous patches of shell and sand and mud that suck onto them.
The sea I fished before was a rock strewn plain, with nine fathom of water as far as the eye could see. Pots move for miles, often ending up resembling a giant football of rope bristling with remnants of netted metal.
Finally, to the West of me is Fishguard Head, and to the East, Dinas Head, and inland to the South, the Preseli and Carningli Hills, all of which take the steam out of most winds.
New Quay Head used to shelter me a little in Llanrhystud, but up from there North, fishermen are afforded no shelter but their wits.
So they are a hard bunch.
I am starting to feel that different domains/locales acutely influence the behaviour & philosophy of the people who live and work there.
Now come on Spikes, don’t be coy, that’s not how it is; It’s more like we know something deep in our body’s know-ledge, but don’t often dare to formulate it into thought or voice.
Now the weather has settled into a gentle reflectiveness.
The robin sings a wistful blues outside my cabin door
With all the wild stuff I have been presented with this stormy Summer, I had a Season ticket on a long ghost train of old fears & pain, and came out stronger, wiser, but reckless in my directness.
A new and exciting daring.
But with that comes an urgency to getting on with my Thing, which seems mainly to be about communication.
The subject: that you can have a relationship with the Earth which is loving and sensitive, and without guilt- that you can reclaim your life’s power, take it back from the Planners, and Health&Safety and Normal Procedures, and our entire culture of tweaked neuroses and fears and guilt and blame we call Civilization.
If fact you have NO excuse not to.
Your Planet Needs You.
The hunger for both connection to life and energy beyond the human, and the challenges you meet at sea, shows you are near where I am now already.
But our first task is to acknowledge our own pain.
You have to own yours. It is your own, special ticket on that ghost train, to meet your ancestors, to make friends with that lonely child inside you, to come to some accord with those monstrous looming grown-ups and events in your life.
Don’t give it away by indulging in blame.
That way leads to victimhood and there are too many procedures in this society ready to encourage you down that path.
It is your gift; your journey.
Don’t externalize it into political righteousness or despair either, at what ‘they’ are doing to the planet.
You can’t have a truthful, loving connection to the Sea, this Land Place, with its damage and glory, or its people until you have one with yourself.
Go and ask the sea. Or the trees. Or your nearest hill what they think.
There.
That’s said.
Now the Fishing Results....
Nets, quiet. Seals, active.
(had some nice pollack though).
Pots, patchy. Bait, rationed.
(still had two out of ten today, so not complaining)
Sea, tranquil, World, perfect.
(am enjoying the now in all its glory)
and the
spiders
have gone.
