SAND CASTINGS

The wind off Lake Michigan blows ferociously at times. The trademark shoreline in southwestern Michigan is abundandant with gently curved and thinly structured grasses that perch on mound after mound of sifted tawny sand. A barefoot walk through the dunes is an experience I highly recommend. Not only will your muscles get a workout as you churn upwards through the sifting dune-sand, but the cold silky-smooth grains submerge your feet in a pleasure moment all its own!

The past four days have been spent near this favorite spot of mine, Benton Harbor, Michigan. The arts are alive and well in this city. A friend I have come to know in recent years is a pewtersmith and resides in this delightful city. Her studio is located in an old Box Factory - a place that many artists call 'home' for their creative ventures. She creates some of the finest pewter vessels and wall art that one can find, having recently been selected for a special award at our own Twin Cities-St. Paul Arts and Crafts Show at Xcel Center this past April. One of her techniques involves casting molten metal in various shapes. She can also be found pounding, torching, coloring, pitting, etching, fusing and twisting this malleable metal. Her patinas and style is truly unique. With a gentle spirit and committed daily routines, her work has caused me to examine my own life-journey through the eyes of her labors. As I contemplate my life as the metal in her hand, I have felt my share of blows, a pounding of the spirit. Sometimes the cutting edge, an etching if you will, of words, has brought a measurement of pain and the heat of conflict has torched my soul on, but a few occasions. These are real-life experiences most all of us face in life as we are cast into a being that hopes to find beauty in the end. Allowing ourselves to be shaped by The Creator, we learn through our own efforts, to create through individual experiences a meaningful, peaceful and fruitful life. Each of us are a piece of art, working our way to life's completion as we receive from others and give from our soul, the best we have to give. And so, the days pass one by one as we step off our future.

Taking a break, yesterday, from the collage-art I am creating on this pilgrimage journey of mine, I ventured down to Silver Beach in St. Joseph, MI, a large and impressive beachfront, as beaches go. A mild breeze prevailed on this day with temperatures feeling colder than the weather-person declared. I was amazed on my first visit to this fine place, how the beach resembled the winterscape of Iowa on a snowy day. That is, the wind-born sand at this spot creates drifts more than 3 feet high! I am told by locals of the invasion of tractor-sized equipment with their mammoth shovels being brought beachside with regularity to clean up the massive drifting. After a redepositing of the sand at water's edge once more, the monster wheels roll off the beach, leaving gigantic herringbone tire track castings for beachcombers to contemplate. As I walked swiftly toward the water's edge yesterday, clutching my sweater tightly to my neckline, I stared at the castings in the sand. Big tires tracks, smaller tire tracks, perfectly imbedded jogger shoe tracks and of course, plenty of webbed seagull bird-prints. The sand flats are water sodden on this day, making castings with perfection. I contemplated the lives of those whose footprints were left here at Silver Beach for my scrutiny. Perhaps a contemplative beach visit, an exhuberant moment, a love-struck moment, a sorrowful visit to water's edge - only God knows the souls of those who stood here, where I now stand in my own contemplative moment. A prayer flung upward, to The Keeper of those who still walk this earth, for good welfare, peace and life-direction, I turn away from the pounding surf on my walk back to Pedro, my home on wheels. I smile at the multitude of patterned designs the jogging shoe industry comes up with to plaster on the soles of their brand, each etched to perfection in today's sandscape. I could easily have material for a one-person art show today, if I reverse-casted the variety of jogger-sole imprints left for my perusal on this nostalgic day. I will resist the urge and return to my collage-art still in process in my own art space.

The wind of change is blowing in my life. Having retired within the past year from a good many years working as part of a hospital team that gives care to children, I have been searching for my next life-focus. It is at once, a bit unsettling as well as totally exhilerating to have such a freedom. I usually find my days unfolding in a relatively intuitive manner. This can be a good thing and, oft-times not so good, depending on the need at hand. If the 'to do list' is long, intuitive living is rather conterproductive. However, given my current 'life on the road' with relatively few deadlines and a great deal of flexibility, intuitive living works quite well. Life as a single person also allows for decision-making with less restrictions. Being a third-of-the-way through my year-long travels, I am beginning to gain a new focus for my future. This years' purpose, for me, involves both a committment to connections with family and extended family as well as exploring with more regularity the creative side of me, through the art I am making and giving to those I visit. The states I pass through (12 at last count) have shown me a multitude of landscapes and people-cultures which have broadened my understanding of life. I spend time (almost) daily at coffeeshops (and I am sitting in one at this present moment), a place were a person can get a great 'read' on the workings of life and the people who frequent these establishments. Business transactions happen here, studying happens here, relationships are started and broken here, personal enlightenment through reading and conversation happen here. I've seen it all. I've cried, I've laughed and I've 'stewed' in these places. I've cast off the old and welcomed the new.

 Having arrived at this moment, this coffee shop, in the early part of the day after my beach-walking day in Michigan, I am filing away my thoughts on 'casting' that have become a new awareness to me. People-cultures, whether socio-economic, race or religious heritage have always had their own 'cast systems'.  This type of 'casting', a people orientation, brings to mind a different definition of the word.   To illustrate - the route through the Indiana city I arrived in following my 'beach day', took me through a lower class part of the city. Moments of discomfort as I stopped at the traffic lights illuminated for me the relative life of priviledge I now have. I wondered, as I studied the ragged-edged people on these streets, how they arrived at this place they call home.  Are they held (cast) in this locale by choice or by mandate?  Lest I 'cast my cares to the wind' and forget the less fortunate of this world, my day's events served to remind me of both the role of re-creation and responsibility that is expected of me and all of mankind.

The last thing I did before departing the shores of Lake Michigan where I spent the previous four days was to return to the same beach. My return trip revealed a very different sandscape - dried out sand, now-ferocious winds covering the intricate sand-casted footprints, I realized the temporal nature of all of life. Things change. New realities unfold. God takes the old and makes a new tomorrow.

As I rolled down the road and out of the town of my pewtersmith friend, windshield wipers moving to and fro, I relished the joys of new friends, of the lessons of nature through grains of sand and the anticipations of new life-scapes as sand sifts through the hourglass of the days of my life.

Intothewind-

Naturegirl