Creationtide

Keji Seaside Adjunct, Nova Scotia --Ruth Mundy

Earlier this year we booked a vacation for September in the Azores, an archipelago of islands in the Atlantic which is a part of Portugal. Then a long-time friend offered us the use of her lovely beach cottage on the south shore of Nova Scotia at the beginning of October. Although we were only home for a little over a week from the first trip before we left on the next it was well worth seizing the opportunity.

The cottage is on the road in to the Kejimkujik National Park Seaside Adjunct, a wild and wind-swept place of extraordinary beauty. The PM and spouse visited last summer and when they reached the water he asked "can we stay here forever?"
https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/ns/kejimkujik/visit/seaside-bord-de-mer

The cottage itself is on the edge of a bay where the ebb and flow of the tides is across a tidal flat. This means that every inhalation and exhalation of the tides leaves a huge area of sand exposed. We could walk for kilometres along the shore and at lowest tide we could venture out halfway across the long, narrow bay, serenaded by seals -- they howl like wolves.

Perhaps because we were there in October we saw few people during our rambles. On one early morning walk at Keji it was three hours before we saw or heard another human. We had three nights of clear skies and with no moon to speak of we could see the startlingly clear swath of the Milky Way because there is no light pollution. Our last night, October 8th, we witnessed many "shooting stars" and checked online. It was the height of the Draconid Meteor Shower which was best seen in the Maritimes this year. This area of Nova Scotia is actually darker than some of the designated Dark Sky Preserves in Ontario because there are no communities of any size.

If this sounds like heaven on earth, it was. I was well aware that we were there during the waning days of what is now called Creation Time in the church, or Creationtide in the Church of England. That latter name was perfect for our location. There was a tide clock above our the table where we ate meals, a reminder of the different rhythm to the day than the 24-hour clock which can be a tyrant in our busy lives.

I had with me the lovely devotional book by Macrina Weiderkehr called sevensacredpauses and one of the morning prayers is:

Set the clock of your heart for dawn's arrival.

Taste the joy of being awake.

The tide clock above the table gave a unique meaning to the invitation. Now that we're home our challenge will be to make room in our active lives (yes, even in retirement) for the rhythms of the Creator which nurture us.