After returning recently from a vacation to northern Maine coastal waters, and kayaking on the open waters, I have a renew awareness of the rise and fall of the tides: twice a nearly 11 feet, leaving large mudflats and rocky coastal shores visible at low tide. At high tide, mud flats became inlet bays. A tidal chart can predict to the minute the pattern of the tides each day.
On a summer Sunday morning, I’m back in the Hudson Valle, I launch my kayak at Tivoli Bays and paddle out to the Hudson River. The Hudson River, which flows into Hudson Bay and into the Atlantic Ocean, is a tidal river. This estuary river rises and falls with the tide. This morning at low tide, I put my kayak into the bay and paddle through a meandering wetland at low tide. I’m surrounded by mud-dried lilie pads. I can see grasses flowing with the current under the surface of the water. I can see the root lines of the grasses and mud beaches. The beaver lodges are fully exposed and you can see underground tunnels into the shelters.
Over the last year, I’ve been actively involved in nature based practice, reconnecting with the earth’s rhythms. Sunrise and sunset happen daily with the rotation of the earth, the position of the earth in relation to the sun and moon affects the rising and falling of the tides, shifting atmospheric pressures and changing temperatures affect the weather. Spending time in wild nature away from roads, paths and buildings, new patterns arise in my field of vision: cyclical, amorphic, and random. The irregular patterns of trees and leaves in a forest, the movement of water over and around rocks and trees, sometimes spilling over into flood plains, the regeneration of plants and animals around us, the miracle of the food web all point to a system of life that stands in stark contrast to what we have created in the built environment.
In the modern world, humans have become removed from nature. Our lives are focused more on time, dates, events and people and an endless stream of manufactured foods and things that add to our creature comforts. As humans —(yes, are an invasive species)— we have grown in population and we overwhelm the natural world; more and more wild natural areas are destroyed, turned into large arrays of agricultural lands and buildings connected by roadways, sewer lines and power lines. We drive in our cars with the windows closed or fly over our continent at an elevation of 30,000+ feet and seldom experience the beauty and discomforts of the out-of-doors. And with this physical change in our built landscape, a psychic change occurs: we lose connection with breathing with the trees, the heartbeat of the land, waking and retiring to the rising and the setting sun. Electricity is our God and Their hand is seen in all of our human creations.
Which brings me back to the tides. The rising and falling of the tides, occurring twice a day, is a reminder that there is a force greater than ourselves.
So on this beautiful summer day, I set out to paddle at low tide through the meandering stream to the Hudson River, calmed by the tall grasses along the shore swaying in the breeze. I pause to feel myself floating on mirror like surface of the water. I am drifting toward the shore, the sky reflected in the water. I am in this magical place between water and sky, with the subtle, slow rise of the tide lifting me up. I sit motionless, drifting, breathing deeply, feeling my heart beating, imaging day after day this water rising and falling to the gravitational pull of the moon.
A bald eagle soars overhead with its white crown and wide wingspan. It’s a breathtaking sight, high above the waterway, moving southward. I sit back in the kayak and wonder where might this bird be going. Moments later, I spot a kingfisher perched on a tall snag near the train tracks.
Many, many centuries ago, long before “modern times” humans lived with the rhythms of the natural world, knowing the rhythm of the tides and the natural resources needed to survive: fresh water, harvesting plants and hunting animals for food. And now I sit quietly in my kayak, floating on the open waters, basking in the sun, feeling what it means to be alive.