Figure 1 – The Mists of Avalon, Plum Island, Newburyport, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019
Yesterday, I finally made it up for an early spring visit to Plum Island. The trip had the instant vacation, the instant spiritual cleansing, effect of all trips to the sea. This did not disappoint. Massachusetts’s North Shore is a magnificent and magical place, especially this time of year when great expanses of the shoreline are devoid of people, when the sea is cold and green, when you can immerse yourself in the insistent claim to existence of the surf and the wind.
Yesterday was overcast, although there was a cloud-draped sun, and there was a glorious mist. This immediately evoked all the magic of the mists of Avalon and the fact that we, as English speaking people, are spiritually, if we open our minds to it, never too far from that seminal myth of Britain. Mist is hard to photograph, but I am pleased by the image of Figure 1. I took several images but this one, where the woman resembles Vivien, Mallory’s “Lady of the Lake,” spoke most to. It seems as if the Lady of the Lake lifts up the fog from the sand and the sea. The mist does not enshroud her, but rather she enshrouds herself with the mist. We have the words of that ultimately describe the critical point of all hero journeys.