This is humbling and wondrous, reminds us of the relatedness living beings really have to Life......and how much, perhaps, we have mislaid by our all-consuming and often strange human concerns, our lack of connectivity..... A certain kind of smelt, distantly related to the salmon, inhabit the open sea. Once a year at their spawning time in May they approach the coast of California. They wait near the shore until the tide reaches the highest point on the third day after full moon, and allow themselves to be carried up on to the beach by the last, highest wave. There the females lay their eggs in the wet sand and the males fertilise them, and with the next wave they return again to the open sea. But this wave is already the first of the receding tide. So the eggs on the sand are left untouched by the water and not swept away, for this wave does not reach them on the beach. The high tides in the following thirteen days do not again attain this level. Not until fourteen days later is the tide again high enough to reach the spawn of the smelt; it hatches only a few minutes before being washed out to sea, not to return to that shore until years later, fully grown, for a moment on this third day after full moon in May. These fish live in such close connection with the cosmic movements of the water – for that is what the tides are – that they ‘know’ with astronomical accuracy to the second when the tide has reached its highest point on the third day after full moon in May. Only for one moment in the year are the relative positions of sun, moon and earth suitable for them.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 08:01:04 +0000