Our World Tuesday: What Mama Did

For me, this is the most exciting sight in the world.

The the right of this image, you can detect the regular pattern of indentations in the sand.  They are turtle tracks.  Mama turtle made her way up the beach near our crossover the other night and entrusted our dune--and us--with the future of her brood.

Check out the deep indentations in the sand. They are the marks her body left as she pulled herself forward along the beach she first knew when she came into the world.

Sea turtles start their lives two feet below the surface of the sand.  After they break through their shells, they climb their way up to the surface and then make their way to the ocean.  Around here, they do that with the systematic, highly organized help of the turtle people, who do all they can to keep a safe, clear way between the nest and the shoreline for as long as it takes from the nest's due date to the final hatching.

Here you can see the tracks mama made when she came down the dune and made her nest.  You could miss it if you didn't know what to look for.  I think it's amazing.

This morning, I came across a family with half a dozen little kids parading around the thing like it was the May pole and sucking on their juice pouches.  My inner hall monitor made her way to the surface to see things right by all the work that turtle had done.  I educated a few young 'uns though their mother's pursed lips told me I went a little too far in her mind.  (Which is fine.) 

People talk about the sacred as if it were an out-there kind of thing.  Where your feet touch the earth?  That's sacred.  The beautiful thing about where I am right now is that so many people work so hard to protect the sanctity of life as it manifests itself in sea turtles.  I don't want to be anywhere else.  This sand is my holy place, and it fills me with hope.

Our World Tuesday