Coal Oil Point - walking on anenomes

After seeing the goats (and their rectangular irises), at coal oil point, I was struck by one thing that happened while walking around the nearby tidepools - the anemones that carpeted certain areas of the rocky outcropping were made to be walked on. All of the symbolism associated with the act of 'walking all over someone', when applied to the purposeful design of this species to withstand this is amazing. They pulled fragments of shell and rock to cover their soft circular bodies, and seemingly to also protect them from the pressure of things that may cover, stand, or wash over them. They are an organism that blends so well into the rock on which they reside, they almost become a living skin to the rock. A few of the larger anemones that were in the water rather than upon the rock, had a leaf of kelp in their mouths, slowly digesting the food, while the rest of it hangs out and dangles in the water. This was one of the first cues to becoming more aware of the life that these organisms had and were living. Rather than a slimy surface you have to walk over to see another more impressive organism, they became for me a much larger life force than I previously acknowledged. This realization was powerful in thinking about the living surfaces that surround us at all times in nature; even the seemingly dead sand of the desert contains elaborate, and interwoven webs of organisms that are completely invisible to the eye.


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