Shifting Sands by Bill Wofford
Every summer reminds me that nature never stands still.
Lexie and I, along with a couple of our favorite twentysomethings, just returned from a week on Bald Head Island. When pressed on the ferry ride back to Southport, I had to admit: yes, it's my favorite North Carolina beach. And I've spent the better part of thirty years trying out lots of them.
Getting there requires some commitment—a ferry ride, a golf cart, careful packing, and a willingness to live with fewer conveniences. That's part of the charm. Once you're there, the pace changes. Cars are almost nonexistent. Every outing begins with a simple question: bicycle or golf cart? Walking is a distant third. Sometimes paddling is the better answer. Before long, you find yourself wondering why life everywhere can't be just a little more like this.
The island seems determined to remind you that you're a visitor in someone else's home. Herons and egrets stalk the marshes with patience. Cardinals and painted buntings take turns at the bird feeder. Pelicans dive for breakfast just offshore while sandpipers hustle along the tide line. Crabs by the hundreds scuttle to and fro. During one paddle, a companion pointed out a floating stick. Then the stick began swimming—with purpose. Water snake. And of course there was the little gator that wandered into the garage.
The local celebrity, though, is the sea turtle. This summer, more than 120 nests dotted the island's beaches, each carefully marked and protected by volunteers from the Bald Head Island Conservancy. We never witnessed a hatch, but every walk became an invitation to imagine what was happening beneath the sand.
And then there is the ocean.
I love the Atlantic in just about any season and at any latitude, but late July in North Carolina may be close to perfection. Cool enough to refresh. Warm enough to linger for hours. Chef's kiss. East Beach offered great body surfing. South Beach, bearing the full brunt of the prevailing winds, lends itself more to boogie boarding. West Beach? Lovely for sunsets and watching ships make their way to and from Southport or Wilmington, but not really my jam.
Perhaps the most fascinating stretch is where East and South meet to create the ever- changing tip of Cape Fear, a shifting, sandy, shallow shoal. Winds and tides sculpt the shoreline daily, reshaping the sandy point into something slightly different each time you visit. Play your cards right and the winds and tide will conspire to whip up an impromptu exfoliation treatment – free of charge!
Nature, of course, always gets the final word. Our last full day began with the flashes, cracks, and rolling booms of a classic summer thunderstorm. More surprising, though far less dramatic, was something called shoaling.
Every so often, enough sand shifts into the shipping channel that large vessels can no longer pass safely. Until dredges arrive to reopen the passage, ships simply wait. The currents that normally carry commerce to and from the island are quietly interrupted by nothing more exotic than...sand.
Living beholden to a blocked channel got me thinking about another kind of channel.
Yogic traditions describe the body as containing thousands of energetic pathways, or nadis. These aren't blood vessels or nerves. They're channels through which prana—our life force—is said to move. Like waterways, they don't remain clear by accident.
Life has its own version of shoaling. It often starts with stress. And old habits. Distraction, resentment, worry, busyness—little by little they collect, often so gradually we hardly notice. The current that once felt free becomes sluggish. We may still function just fine, but something doesn't feel quite as open or alive.
One of the aims of kriya yoga is to clear those inner channels.
Through breath, movement, meditation, and specific energetic practices, we gradually remove what has accumulated. We don't stop life's currents any more than we stop the tides around Bald Head Island. But we can learn to keep the channels open, allowing breath, awareness, and vitality to move with greater ease.
Eventually the dredges will clear the harbor, only for the tides to reshape it again. That is simply the nature of sand. Our own inner landscape isn't so different. The work is never really finished. The channels don't stay clear on their own. But with practice, we become a little more attentive to what has settled there—and a little more skillful at letting the current flow again.
See you on the mat.
