Fossilizing the Past

The healing truth amongst the layers of the past on the English coastline

We wandered from the hills of Lyme Regis down to the shoreline of the Jurassic Coastline as the low tide revealed the rocks and layers of a past world that once wandered the land here. An era we never personally knew and still are yet to understand and discover.

The wind was whipping, and rain was impending. The sea in the bay, even at low tide, was raging. Storms brewed off the shoreline that would hit in the coming few days and would steal power from the peninsula that held itself in the wilds of the raging hands of the Atlantic Ocean. The low tide revealed the ocean's underworld where layers of fossils were evident in the cliff sides of Devon, we were choosing to stand on that afternoon along with other fossil hunters below the massive cliffs that could collapse at any moment. Here we were, choosing to risk our lives looking to excavate the past as if it had something to reveal to us.

I sat on a rock that looked rather uninteresting. Smooth, gray, and nothing that would have identified it beyond another rock. The salty air and wind made my lips taste the water as it settled on my skin, and the cold air made my nose run. The sounds of the waves, wind, and tinkering fossil hunters hammering rocks were the soundtrack to our exploration. Layers of seaweed hardened and turned gray rocks green as they awaited to come back to life once the moon pulled the high tide back again. If we looked closely, we saw marks of the past firmly shaped into the rocks around us. Telling of a time we know nothing of besides the shapes left in these solid objects made by pressure, time, and minerals combine to suspend them in time.

Honestly, I don’t consider myself a sea lover. I love the smell of the air and the salt on my lips and skin. I love how my hair gets wilder and less controlled, and the way the ocean can remind me of how important it is to rage, be wild, and move with every emotion and movement of the moon. I love it all, but I will forever be a spirit that belongs amongst the hills and wooded lands with covered moss. I am of the soil and sun and less of the water. Yet, I will always come to the water to look for the story the soil has written, and the water washes back to us.