Some Sandy Things

Ever since Dan the Labyrinth Man taught me how to draw the classic Cretan maze, I've been drawing them on the beach at Iron Springs. This was my first labyrinth at the new Moclips location:

It's called the Cretan maze because the image has been found on 3000-year-old Cretan coins. It's not the one the Minotaur lived in, though, because there's only one way in, and one way out -- so Theseus wouldn't have needed Ariadne's thread to find his way home after killing the monster. It's a nice mediation to walk it, especially on a sunset beach. And you can always imagine your own monster in the center -- ready to be slain, or befriended, or simply left behind when you make your way back out.


I'm also a big sandcastle builder. We didn't do much of that this year, but this family did, and asked me to take their picture in front of their creation when I walked by. (I did, but with their camera, alas.) It really was a tremendous sandcastle -- but I think I might have built it just a little further from the car, if it were me.


It seemed to be a big weekend for amorous declarations. I must have passed by at least a half-dozen giant hearts drawn in the sand on the way back from the picnic at Iron Springs. Many of them were inscribed with messages: "I LOVE YOU KAREN," "M.E. + T.R.," etc. I also saw a couple of "I [HEART] You"s and one somewhat mysterious "I [CLOVER LEAF] You." (I luck you? I club you? I presume the recipient understood this better than I did.)

I think this one was my favorite verbal piece, however. I loved it that someone exerted so much effort, without having thought of anything more to say than this:


I was delighted to come upon someone else's Cretan labyrinth on the sand at Pacific Beach. I hope its creators got the same pleasure seeing me drop my backpack on the sand and walk right into their maze that I do when total strangers wander into mine.

But all the human creations on the beach couldn't hold a candle to the hundreds of naturally occurring permutations of sand, water, wind, and sun.

I mean, only the ocean can chew up a burnt tree and spit it back out in a web of branches that somehow evoke the original:


And could any of us have fashioned these blooming marshmallow flowers out of seafoam?

(I especially like the way they get stretched into Edvard Munch characters as they are dragged back into the sea.)

I spent a long time trying to figure out if these shadows were mouths or eyes:

Are they trying to tell us something, or just watching? I still can't decide.