Talking with Mother Earth

We were blessed with a beach trip recently, spending a week with my mother and sister at a beach house right on North Topsail Beach, NC. Our little family lucks into one of these vacations about every 5 years or so. Last time it was Folly Beach, SC, where I am certain part of my soul remains. I loved Folly so much, feeling an immediate connection to that little stretch of sand just off our deck. There I could feel the pull of the waves. Talking with Mother Ocean came quite easily.

Topsail Island? Not so much. I couldn’t feel the sense of history that’s present at Folly. And our beach house sat on a bit farther back from the shoreline. Our deck was actually over the dune, which was pretty cool. And the island’s history is very different from that of Folly, so it wasn’t fair to compare them, but that’s what humans do. But I wanted my spiritual experience at the beach, dang it! It was even a full moon – which is breathtaking. So, it was time to invest in the spirit of the place and center myself with where I was at that time.

Talking with Mother Ocean

The second night there, I headed out to the beach after it was dark and most of my fellow beachgoers had headed off for bed. That dark expanse was all mine. Parking myself about 8 to 10 feet from the edge of where the waves were landing, I just sat there, staring out at the ocean in all her dark magnificence. If you’ve seen the ocean at night, with no other lights around, then you know it takes on an inky blackness like no other. Just like the depths of space when looking upward, the ocean at night is very much its own color.

As I sat, I talked to Her quietly, letting her know how much I wanted to feel connected to her and to this place, this point in time, but that I just wasn’t feeling it. I might be a fire sign through and through, but I needed that connection to Her – to both the Earth’s womb and its heartbeat. On a whim, I reached down and drew a simple heart in the sand, adding some wavy lines through its center. I know, it seems like something a child or teenager might do, but compared to the Ocean, isn’t that what we all are?

And She let me know I’d been heard, and she was there, for the very next moment I was surprised by a sudden wave getting some oomph and making across that distance of sand to wash past me by at least a foot. (Good thing I went down in my swimsuit!) She claimed my heart drawing and, in her way, embraced me at the same time*. I still had my work to do while there but connecting to the actual Mother wasn’t one of them.

Connect to Place

I’m telling this story because it not only inspired awe in me, to get such a response, but because we can do similar things wherever we are in the world. The response might not be so dramatic, but if you’re communication attempt is heartfelt, then there will be a response. So, my question to you is simple – What can you do, or what have you done, where you are to feel connected to the Earth around you? For me, while at home, it’s to step out on the one side deck and feel the breeze brush my face. At the beach, it will be to sit and talk with Mother Ocean.

Please, share your stories in the comments below. I want to hear about your magical experiences with nature suddenly reacting to you.

*And for the curious, the wave was only where I was sitting and not along the rest of the shoreline. Also, the rest of the waves subsided back to their original distance from me. It really was like it was deliberately in answer to me.