Just a Druid connecting with nature

I found the mermaid’s purse in the photo, washed up on the beach at Aberystwyth. It was firm and shiny and it felt alive – this is a case for a growing embryo, either a shark or a skate. I think this one was a shark. I wasn’t going to let this baby thing dry out and die on the sand. As I had my frog wellies on, I took the case back to the retreating tide in the hopes that it would be carried away.

That should have been the whole story. Just a Druid on a beach having a moment with another being and then carrying on with their day. But, I did not know this beach, and it turned out to have consequences.

The beach was mostly fine gravel on a steep slope. The tide was clearly going out, but every now and then it threw up a much bigger wave than the retreating ones – this much I already knew having got my legs wet from one of them. I gave the mermaid’s purse back to the sea and turned to walk back up the beach. One of the big waves caught me from behind, fast moving, and washing over the top of my wellies. That was challenging.

The force of the wave as it headed back down the beach was even more powerful. It pulled the gravel out from under my feet and it dragged on my legs. I fell, backwards, into the water. It wasn’t deep, and it wasn’t as cold as it might have been. But, with my feet higher than my hips thanks to the slope, and the shifting gravel beneath me I could not stand up. Fortunately I wasn’t alone. Tom and James – neither of whom were wearing wellies – came straight into the water to get me on my feet and to help me up the sand. We all ended up moist, and I was soaked to the skin from the waist down – with hindsight it was obvious that we should have got in the sea deliberately. We’d have been drier.

I’ve swum in the sea many times, from many beaches on the UK coast. I’ve paddled my feet in the sea so many times. I’ve never had the sea come up at such speed before, I’ve never been grabbed by water before and I’ve never been so powerless before in face of it. It was a startling experience – no harm done, but that feeling of being bodily overpowered will stay with me. Geography and geology interacting with moon pulls and water to drop my (relatively) small mammal self on my bum.

Connecting with nature isn’t always gentle, or simple and it certainly isn’t always restorative!