Sabbath Day Spirituality

Luckily, I think now, I grew up in a religious community in which the Sabbath day was a day in which one ought to regard with reverence, one day a week as special, one day a week in which one is encouraged to keep it holy.

There is a particularly special stretch of beach I visit frequently and when I saw the sun was peaking through the clouds this morning I knew that I was being invited out-of-doors for a communion with God in nature.

Before leaving, I again took out my yarns and made three God's eyes to hang in the dune forest trees. There are others who also visit and I find most of the time my gifts are accepted by whomever happens upon them. I also brought the end of a loaf of banana bread I baked this week as an offering, to feed the holies as I once was instructed at an animas retreat. I believe the little birds will make a meal of the sweet, nut loaf?

I found a single limpet shell. I haven't seen one in some time and nearly never on the ocean beach as opposed to the river beach--white and brown striped with the hole in the top. My father once told me that this is how another creature burrows in and consumes the aquatic snail.

I think of the men in their camouflage I saw in the parking lot, duck hunters hiking away from the ocean and towards the brackish waters. I note their bald heads, how only older men are this way (as I note especially starkly of one bald man standing next to his dark and curly haired son) and how this must be some direct and naked link to God and light? Rank only earned through a certain amount of time on earth? I know I'm off topic here, but I once read the Chinese required cut bangs on women's heads in order to block their third eyes? And, yes, do please correct me if I'm wrong. Should we wear hats and how does one expose him or herself to heaven light while also avoiding the fate of the limpet?

I found another gift, a shiny and smooth pure black stone carefully sat next to a round and glossy white sitting atop a log just before reaching my turn-around-point, the jetty rocks. I picked them up and kissed them, squeezed them to my heart, thanked whomever had left me this gift to show how well shadow marries to blinding light.