Meditate (verb)  
1) To engage in contemplation or reflection.

2) To reach a heightened level of spiritual awareness.

- Merriam-Webster

I’ve always loved the beach. I love how beautiful it is, with water that changes into every different shade of blue imaginable, fading from a stunning turquoise to darker hues as the water gets deeper. I love how peaceful it is, swimming there, just floating. I love how calm I always feel there, even when kids are screaming around me and seagulls are squawking—the water makes it all just fade away.

The beach has always been a magical place for me. When I was little, my mum used to tell me the sky would transform into vibrant pinks and purples because unicorns were flying around, lighting it up. It’s been a while since I believed her when she said that. Despite this, I always sit down and soak up the last of the day’s glow at the beach. I stare out at the ocean as the sun slowly gets lower, and it’s just so magical that it feels like a place where unicorns would be. Where fairies, angels, and everything I believed in as a little girl could still be possible.

A beach in Blairgowrie with old friends of mine

As with angels and magic, the idea of meditation was something I was always surrounded by growing up. My mum would teach me how to do it, and over time, it became a way for me to connect with more spiritual ideas—a way to connect with the angels.

I didn’t like it much when I was little, just sitting around and not being able to talk. As I’ve gotten older though, I’ve realised how mediation can mean more than just being silent, and that can happen in different ways and places.

The beach often acts a place of meditation for me, a place away from the busyness of the rest of the world. While I love swimming in the cool water, the sand is often where I allow myself to just sit, collect my thoughts, and reminisce on times I wish I could go back to, or times I often don’t like to think about for the sadness they carry.

I suppose then the beach is like a double-edged sword for me. It’s beautiful and serene and free, but it’s also sad, a reminder of what I’ve lost. I’m not sure it could be one without the other though. Maybe the beach only means more to me now, because of the people I once went there with.

*

I spotted the artwork across the room. It distracted me from the other piece I was looking at, and I was instantly captivated. It was almost angelic, how the light shined on the piece, how the chains emerged from the shadows and flowed down to the gleaming crystals.

Before I even learnt the name of the piece or its story, I could see the water. I could see the ocean’s surface in the rows of droplets. I could see how the stingrays below, added movement to the piece, how they gave it a purpose. They gave me a purpose too, for all I can remember thinking as I looked at it, is how much I wanted to go there and be like them; carefree and at peace as they swim around in the water.

*

I normally go to the beach during sunset, especially when I’m with my family. Seeing the beach right now, I know, is one of the most beautiful moments. The sand is warm from spending a day under the sun, and seagulls are flying all around as the sky turns into a stunning mix of pinks, oranges and golds. I could sit there for hours watching the sky change before me, watching how the water reflects the sunset, how the light bounces on the waves, looking like diamonds. Like crystals.

*

The Crystals

Shimmering in the dark room. Sparkling even from a distance. Reflecting tiny flashes of rainbows as I circle them.

It’s all so pretty. That’s the only thought I have as I look at the countless crystals suspended before me, how pretty they are.

They look like water, like a water’s surface when the sun shines down, when the sunlight dances across the waves. How inviting it looks, how peaceful it would be to be amongst them, to feel the light shining down on me too.

*

I’ve stood at beaches across Australia, being taken aback by their beauty each and every time.

I’ve stood in the warm water in Bali, the golden sun shining down as people constantly come past, trying to sell jewellery or drinks or anything of the sort.

I’ve stood in the exceptionally cold water at Brighton Beach in England, after my friend and I took a two-hour train journey from London just because we wanted
to see the famed beach and all its pebbles. And let me tell you, it’s
just pebbles; painful to walk on, but surprisingly comfy to sit on, with no sand to be seen at all. The weirdest part though, was how people were selling buckets and tools to build sandcastles with. How on earth that worked we weren’t too sure. The closest we got was when my friend stacked five rocks on top of each other and declared it to be a ‘sandcastle’.

Our ‘sandcastle’ we made at Brighton Beach, England                                                     

These moments I’ve had with those closest to me over the years have made the beach one of my favourite places. A place of fun, silliness and excitement—and luckily without me having ever come across a jellyfish, shark, or even a stingray.

*

The Stingrays

For an animal often associated with danger and pain, they look so serene.
I didn’t realise what they were at first. I thought they were wings of some sort, maybe angel wings. It was only once I came closer that I realised below the shimming row of crystals—below what I imagine to be the water’s surface—was a group of stingrays.

They are crafted from wood, but they seem so natural, so alive. They might be going in a circle, but they seem to have a purpose.

For an animal so often considered something to be feared, to stay away from, there is nothing to fear about them here, as they ‘swim’ before me.

*

It might be weird how I love the beach so much but fear certain parts of it, like seaweed—so slippery, so gross. Maybe that is part of why I love it so much though, how big the ocean is, and how much of it we don’t know anything about. It’s a big mystery to us still, something we can’t comprehend purely because of its own power, even though there aren’t any barriers or chains keeping us from it.

*

The Chain

Invisible, almost. Neglected, at first. Imposing, once I acknowledge its presence.

The way the light hits them, causes each one to blur together. It looks like mist, or maybe like fog. It’s keeping something hidden from me, diverting my focus.

I don’t think much of the chain, I don’t even really take a moment to look at it until I read about the artwork and its story. Only then does its presence feel more important.

Pretty Beach. A fitting name. I cannot think of a more perfect word, this piece is simply pretty.

Like many things though, there is a darkness to it. A sadness.

*

One of the most meaningful memories I have of being at the beach is from the start of last year. The day itself wasn’t anything too special at the time; it was just when I went to the beach with my mum, cousin, sister and brother—but it has become more special to me as time has gone on.

We went to Brighton Beach (the one in Melbourne this time), since my cousin lived in the city, and it was closer to her. We went at sunset of course, and the sky was a brilliant orange, almost like it was on fire. From memory, I think we had just had a couple of colder summer days with storms, and the sky being this colour meant that it was going to warm up again—something I was looking forward to, since cold weather makes me miserable. Either that, or the unicorns were having fun that day.

'

The sunset at Brighton Beach in Victoria, photographed by my cousin

I didn’t swim that day and neither did my cousin. I can’t remember why I; it might have been the cold and the water being choppier than normal, or maybe I was in a bad mood for some reason or another. I remember feeling a bit less excited for the beach than I normally would be, something I regret in retrospect. Although, I suppose my weird mood turned out to be a good thing in the end. My cousin also didn’t feel up to swimming that day, so we ended up just sitting on the sand and watching the others as they swam, sporadically seeing their heads bob along with the waves.

The details of what we spoke about are hazy now; maybe the weather, or how silly the others seemed for braving the water when we didn’t want to. Perhaps we laughed about how quickly the fish and chips we had gotten for lunch had disappeared—my cousin was, in her words, ‘astonished’ at how quickly we ate the food.

It doesn’t really matter what exactly we spoke about that day—what makes it more special to me now is that we had that time together, sitting and laughing, watching the beautiful scene that surrounded us, and hearing the shouts of my family as they splashed each other.

My cousin passed away later that year, and I’ve missed her every day since, but I’ll always remember this day. I’ll always remember the fun we got to have, just sitting there, the both of us with our bright pink hair, chatting away at our pretty beach.

*

I think back to the chain. About how it fades into the background, yet, when I actually take a moment to properly consider it, it’s not something that can just be ignored. It’s as much a part of the artwork as all the other elements.

The chain represents rain, I read. Suddenly, it makes sense. I can see it, rain pelting down on the beach, making it harder to see, concealing, redirecting our focus. If we can’t get distracted by the beauty of the beach, we can actually feel more, remember more— remember the moments that get lost in the haze.

*

It’s funny, I had forgotten about this day for a while. It got buried in the back of my mind, finding a dark corner in the flurrying mess of thoughts and tucking itself away there, until another friend of mine reminded me.

In a sense, I’ve lost a friend at the beach. Not in the way that might sound, I just lost her as my friend at a beach.

We were friends for 12 years, since prep, and although we had just graduated high school, I had thought we would always be friends.

In an overly complicated situation, I had an argument with her on the phone while I was at the beach with my family. Although funnily enough, the argument itself was also about a beach trip that we had planned.

There were three of us who always did things together, and on this occasion, said friend wanted to have a beach trip on a specific day. However, both myself and my third trio friend couldn’t make that date, prompting an argument about how everyone kept cancelling plans, and how they should just invite someone else instead of us.

It seems trivial now, but the argument brought up years of repressed fights and annoyances that I had never been bothered to bring up in an attempt to avoid such a conflict.

I never would have thought that this fight would have been the start of the end of our friendship.

We were never the same after that, and it took some time before I realised that I didn’t want us to be. So, while the beach may have just been where it all started, when I think back, that’s where I feel like I lost her.

I never realised how many beach memories of mine have turned sad over the years, or became sadder because of things that have happened since. I had never really thought about it until I saw Abdul-Rahman Abdullah’s Pretty Beach.

*

While Pretty Beach initially caught my attention because of its beauty, the story behind the piece made it even more meaningful, allowing me to sink into memories of times spent at the beach with people now gone.

I cannot go back to my own ‘pretty beaches’ without thinking about the people who can no longer come with me. However, by thinking of the beach as a place to meditate, as a way to remember and feel the emotions of times past, I can still hold on to those I’ve lost.

Now when I see a beautiful sunset at a beach, with bright pink streaks going through the sky, or pink orbs being caught in photos of the sunset, I don’t think it’s unicorns anymore—I think of my cousin. I feel connected to her, like she’s around watching. And although it’s sad, it makes the beach much more beautiful and magical to me.

Edithvale Beach at Sunset, with a pink orb captured in the middle of the photo

*

The crystals are the part of the piece I will always focus on the most. I will never be bored of how stunning they are, or how perfectly they create the image of glistening water. It amazes me, how inanimate objects can replicate something so full of movement, so full of life.

The chain always reminds me of rain now, the mistiness that covers the world when it pours, of the things that get hidden. It will always make me pause and think back to rainy days, remembering moments I had long forgotten.

The stingrays—I wonder if I am like them. Swimming in a circle, going back to the beach year after year. People come and go, and I go back to the beach. I sit there and think about the people I want to be there with. I think about the beach trips that have become moments of nostalgia now, when at first, they were just ordinary days.

Each element of this artwork speaks to me in different ways; causing me to wonder about my life, my purpose. I don’t have the answers yet for what the latter might be, but for now, it might just be finding a sense of calm and peace, like I do at the beach. And in doing so, reclaiming a bit of the magic I’ve lost, but that has always existed in my past.