Sun, Surf, Saints

The sun was warm, but the wind was strong and the horizon hazy. Along the cliff tops I wandered with my friend Elizabeth, as the surf crashed on the rocks below us and the sea birds soared, crying overhead. As the wind whipped our hair and the sun burned our noses we ambled and talked, pausing now and again to admire the view or examine a wildflower along the way.

We were at St Non's Bay, having first visited the village-city of St David's, founded by her eponymous son, the patron saint of Wales. On the cliffs overlooking the bay is a holy well dedicated to St Non, and the ruins of a chapel set within a stone circle where St Non is said to have given birth to her famous son during a thunderstorm.


There is a Catholic retreat centre nearby, and the well seems to be visited by both Christians and Pagans. I assume the offerings at the statue are left by Catholics and those around the well by Pagans, but that could be oversimplifying things. We both revere the Divine Female after all.

Along the clifftops things are much simpler. The wind scours us clean and the sound of the waves soothes us. There is the smell of seaspray and wildflower honey. We only need to be dazzled by the sparkle of sun on water and to relax in the warmth of friendship to know in our bones that the Divine has many faces and is in all things, and that to split theological (or even thealogical) hairs is to miss the point: it doesn't matter how we see it or what we call it, only that we acknowledge it and value it.

Blessed Be.