Another strange and twisted piece of driftwood has been washed up on the beach. This one seems to have several different faces in it. It reminds me of Celtic art with animals all done in twisting and overlapping positions. Unlike the Book of Kells, however, which is colorful and illuminated, the driftwood bears no color but gray. It is this color, or lack thereof, that gives driftwood its unmistakable and haunting appeal.
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| Another ghost upon the shore. |
But they’re all just ghosts.
No matter how soft they might be to the touch, no matter how wispy and
silvery, no matter how carved, molded, and etched--they’re all just
ghosts. When something gets swept into
the ocean, it does not return the same, assuming it returns at all. The ocean is very greedy for the stored
energy in the hapless castaways that are unfortunate enough to fall into its
clutches. In the case of wood, which was
grown and nurtured on land and which holds the secret energy of the sun, the
appetite of the ocean is insatiable.
Although it has its own strange energies and deep currents, some which
are still not completely understood, the ocean always hungers for more.
So when they wash up on the shore, they are forever changed. Their dance with the ocean--at first violent
and thrashing, and later smooth and undulating--has stolen much of their
original nature away. They are ghostly
caricatures of what they once were. The
green of life has been devoured. The
brown of decay has been savored. Only
the silvery ghostly soul remains, haunting the shore, and this is why we
cannot take our eyes off driftwood once we see it.
When I was young, we would set the ghosts free. We would light a fire and put the driftwood
in it. These days I’m told it gives off
a toxic smoke filled with dioxins, but somehow we all survived back then. If you are bold enough to try it, you will
see the ghosts being released. The properties
the driftwood has absorbed from the ocean will come flying out in flames of
purple, blue, and green. The colors are
magnificent at night! The Earth and Sun energy
may have been stolen by the Ocean, but the power absorbed in exchange is
undeniable. Unearthly. Unbelievably haunting.
When old ghosts are bothering my mind and heart
from days gone by, I always seem to find a piece of strange driftwood. It’s as if it has been searching for me all
these years. I wait for night and light
a fire and set the ghosts free. Purple,
blue, and green salamanders fly off into the darkness and find another place to
haunt. I’m free again, for the time
being, until the ghosts return.
