A Faraway Thoughtful Spot - January 2021

Sometimes adventures carry us far away from the familiar, contemplative places that we call home, but, in every faraway place, a Thoughtful Spot is waiting.  On an delightfully unexpected journey, I traveled to my birthplace, a little town on a big island in southeast Alaska, and, among a vast array of magnificently beautiful places, I stumbled upon a quiet rocky beach that became, for the last two weeks of the first month of this new year, my Faraway Thoughtful Spot.

It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,
It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

- The Spell of the Yukon, Robert Service

This beach is home to seagulls, to a content and ever-present paddling of ducks, and to a remarkably chatty herd of sea lions, whose curiously bobbing heads and gregarious barks keep me faithful company.  When the tide is low, purple and orange starfish cling to the rocks just below the water's surface, their bright colors bringing a vibrancy to the deep, soft grayness all around me. 

The view from this beach is often shrouded in solid mist, an almost tangible wall between the shore and the great unknown of the ocean beyond.  But on clear days a majestic mountainscape appears across the narrows, and then the intensity of the light and the breathtaking grandeur of these surroundings is indescribably humbling.  This evening, the mist is heavy and the water still,  a delicate snow is falling, and there is great peace on this lonely beach.

The waves have a story to tell me, /As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops, / The wind has a lesson to teach;

 - The Three Voices, Robert Service

Familiar herbs are few and far between in this wintry temperate rain forest. No plantain, or chickweed, or dandelions appear among the moss and rock and seaweed, but one familiar friend is everywhere - the evergreens. While many evergreen trees have medicinal properties, my favorite will always be the pines.   The sweet, crisp scent of a pine forest is at once peaceful and invigorating, they are one of the oldest living things on earth, some of them surviving thousands of years, and there are one hundred and twenty-six known species.  They provide a glorious glimpse of green throughout the winter and, in perfect design, these winter greens provide an excellent source of vitamin C that can be freshly harvested to support the immune system through the cold and flu season.

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... a lush carpet of pine needles...
is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.

-Helen Keller

Soon I'll return to my familiar Thoughtful Spot, nestled in the pastoral woods of home.  One adventure will have drawn to a close, and the next day might bring another, but the splendor of this faraway thoughtful spot in a place that once was my home will linger with me always.