February 18th (World Whale Day),

Xavier Rudd’s song, “Follow the Sun”, came to mind as I walked through Dewey’s floaty sands

to the firmness of the water’s edge..

“When you feel life coming down on you,

Like a heavy weight

When you feel this crazy society,

Adding to the strain

Take a stroll to the nearest waters

And remember your place

Many moons have risen and fallen, long before you came”

Life is full of a spectrum of experiences, and I’ve learned along the way that feeling all

that I feel with radical acceptance is deeply healing. I recently listened to a shamanic healer in

Oregon say that humans usually have three fundamental impulses to life’s experiences; feeling,

thinking, and acting. What comes first of these three can be balanced with what comes last. As

soon as the tides within me began to rise in wake of my punching “you don’t have time for this”

thoughts, I turned to action with my camera, and began snapping photos of every pleasing

perspective that met my gaze. I needed action. Like the workout that I’d done before coming to

the ocean, it took quite a lot of time before I really warmed up, but when I did, something clicked

(literally with my cam, but mostly figuratively). I was seeing everything differently. As details

became more absorbent of my mind, winter’s gift of empty beaches gave the sounds of each

breaking wave an exhilarating depth.

Dewey Beach is less than 15 blocks long, and only a couple of blocks wide, with the

Atlantic on one side, and the Rehoboth Bay on the other. When the sunset lights up the bay,

glassy hues of pinks, oranges, yellows, reds and purples pour onto the patterned ocean sands. On

this lovely evening, the water began looking like a concoction of magical, liquid cotton candy. I

Shannon O’Neill

ENGL230

Page   2

took many intentional motions through in the sand, and peered backwards to see my footprints…

the past couldn’t be more tangible. The photos I took were like capturing grains of sand as time

continuously slipped through my hands. I began four rounds of ujjayi breathing (also known as

ocean’s breath), and the air that streamed through my lungs, and oxygenated my blood, enlivened

that precious, still, expansiveness in my mind. I was one with the endless sea that poured through

my eyes and into my subconscious. I’m pretty sure my mind turned blue.

I felt a re-rendering of loyalty to my homeland taking place in my spirit this evening. An

influx of gratitude struck me as I realized how lucky I am to be on earth right now. One day this

town could be gone due to sea level rise, but for now it is part of my purpose to synchronize my

actions with the highest good and health of myself and this planet. I try to lead in this way,

especially for the change I wish to see in Dewey. Each summer, the bars that saturate this town

throw away more plastic in a day then several people could consume in a lifetime. Plastic

decorates the south and eastern coasts of pacific islands like confetti because of the plastic people

all over the world, including here, throw away, but like most giant parties, this plastic one isn’t

going to end well. As written in food fight, the gnarly chemicals used in pesticides and herbicides

have hormone and endocrine disrupting chemicals, and plastics have these alarming sorts of

properties as well, and now they are bioaccumulating up the food chain to our dinner plates.

This small town seems to be a microcosm of a macrocosm in regards to profit

maximization over environmental protection, but I find peace in knowing that no matter how far

off track we get as a species, the steps we need to take to come back into balance will be there.

There’s a lot of thinking and acting going on within the big industries and political powers that

be, but I wonder if more feeling (specifically compassion) could evolve these enterprises.

Nevertheless, enjoying nature does wonders in reaffirming my peaceful guardianship for it.

Shannon O’Neill

ENGL230

Page   3