aMAZE me in May!

Drawing on extremely ancient spiritual symbology, modern labyrinths can still be found in gardens, churches, earth and artworks all over the world, from Chartres, outside Paris, to Grace Cathedral here in San Francisco, My favorite labyrinth, though, can be found on the beach every May in Brighton. Built by local artist/engineer Kevin Halsall every year since about 1997, it has become a particularly vibrant part of the annual LowTide festivities in this small seaside town on the south coast of England.

LowTide began there in Brighton in 1995, when I joined environmental pioneer Clive Pepe and a group of dedicated volunteers to launch the first event with about 12 participating groups around the UK coast. Focusing attention on the beauty and mystery of the stretch between sea and land at low tide, it quickly grew into an international celebration in coastal communities all over the world. From California to Kent, Morocco to Ireland, Australia to Canada, France to Florida, people gathered in groups large and small to pay homage to the sea.

“One Tide on One Day around One World”, and “We all Live Downstream” are the festival’s mottos and they express the collective vision behind this world-wide event. Celebrated in as many different ways as there are participating groups, over the years the festivities have included guided walks in coastal parklands with scientists and historians, semi-private esoteric ceremonies at dawn and sunset, rock-pooling parties, storytelling in yurts, divers and touch tanks, animations and face-painting, beach cleaning and critter counts, and of course, Labyrinth walking.

Held every year on the Saturday in May with the lowest tide (amazingly, the tide is low everywhere at the same time of the month – usually around the new moon), this year’s LowTide festival will be on May 7th. As the international LowTide coordinator, I hereby invite you to join the fun!

If you feel called to participate, just send me a email with details of what you plan to do, and I’ll make sure it gets in the listings. All we ask of you is that you don’t charge money for whatever you do, and that you give us a report of what happened.

There is no funding available for events outside of the UK and France (so far!), but we still manage to offer plenty of free support, including some gorgeous posters you can print out with your own event’s details, some stunning lunar calendars as give-aways, and other useful and entertaining environmental education tools. Email me & I’ll send them to you.

For a practical guide and some ideas of things to do, see
http://www.riverocean.org.uk/lowtide/guide.html . For more information, this year’s event listings, and a history of the festival, see http://www.riverocean.org.uk/lowtide/index.html

For the Sea!

Comments

[harriet]

Hi Amy,
I'm glad you're still involved in this. I see my favourite seaside is doing it this year, a rock pool walk, but it isn't in the listings. It really seems to be spreading. and I love the idea of sand art.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/thingstodo/events/default.asp?propertyID=364&period=366

[John Scull]

Following the leadership from Brighton, we have been having LowTide in Cowichan Bay, British Columbia, since 1999. We clean up the shoreline from the winter storms and then parents and children do a "critter count" quadrat study under the direction of a marine biologist. Between events we have food an music.

The low tide is at 11 am this year, so we're having a pancake breakfast, then the beach cleanup, then the critter count, then lunch. Anyone in this part of the world is welcome to join us. Anyone who live near the ocean can easily organize their own event. Great fun, and a great awareness-raiser.
John

[amy lenzo]

John & Harriet,

Thanks for the support, and pointers to the great events people do - from simple walks to extravaganzas like John and his friends in Cowichan Bay have been doing every year.

This is such a simple thing to do, but how powerful... to highlight this natural connection we all have, at the same time all over the world.

I'd love to make it up to Cowichan Bay one of these years to celebrate with you, John!

Bless, Amy