By CARLA PRYNE
For The Beachcomber
It was a Vashon moment.
Walking in lower Gold Beach, we spotted a mature bald eagle landing on a tree just ahead. As we drew closer, it seemed that this eagle had an awfully large head. At least there was a very large shock of white near the top of the tree.
As we drew closer, we saw why: There were two eagles, side by side, surveying the shore and the sound, motionless except for occasional tilts of those great heads. We were pretty much spellbound and didn’t care to resume our walk any time soon.
Another woman joined us. She looked up to where we pointed. After a few quiet moments, she put into words what my friend and I were feeling: “It’s so beautiful it makes my heart ache.”
Can you relate?
Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It is what I was born for. (Mary Oliver, “Mindful”)
Vashon moments happen a lot. This island is a place where it is not uncommon for people to point at something that breaks their hearts with delight. If we happen to be driving, we may pull over to the side of the road — or stop in the middle of it — roll down the window, point and say, “Wow, have a look at that.” We might say it out loud, even if there’s no one in the car with us.
Sometimes what stops us may be something that’s considered rare. More often, though, it’s something commonplace: your neighbor’s goat’s head turned just so; your other neighbor’s mare galloping across the pasture, the wind and the light catching her mane and tail; a young buck strolling across the tide flats at Tramp Harbor.
Nor am I talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant — but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations.
Last week a semi rolled over on I-5. It was transporting 14 million honeybees to a blueberry farm in Lynden. Most of the bees died, were killed, or were hauled to a nearby dump.
That kind of news breaks the heart — a heartbreak that comes not from delight, but from deep sadness.
This Earth Day, and every day, there is much to be sad about. But there is also much good news, and it is happening all over the world. Some of that good news for the earth is happening right here on Vashon Island. People are hitching their energies and love, their skills and creativity, to healing the earth: not just bees, but salmon, trees, soil, water.
It is what I was born for — to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world — to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation.
Maybe that’s part of what we do for each other as fellow members of the commonwealth — really the “common gift” — of Vashon and Maury Islands. We share moments of joy and acclamation. And in so doing, we encourage each other in the wider work of healing the planet, the commons of life we share with all who live on this blue-green pellet, bright in a very large universe.
“Look!” we exclaim, jabbing an elbow into our friend’s rib and pointing to something lovely on this good land. We share with each other a few of the “daily presentations” which offer themselves for our delight, and our transformation, every single day.
We share not just delight, but gratitude and love. We share work, with many hands on deck and boots on the ground. And when that’s done, we sometimes celebrate with great jam sessions, singing and strumming at the end of the day.
This is the kind of community that is commonplace here. This is the kind of community that feeds the soul and allows us to dare and dream big as we join others in what has sometimes been called the great work of our generation.
I won’t drive the road down to lower Gold Beach any time soon without remembering that walk and those eagles. Just another Vashon moment.
— Carla Pryne is rector at Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit on Vashon. She co-founded and was first executive director of Earth Ministry, a Seattle-based nonprofit.
