On the Sea Shore

Abstract

This piece uses story and metaphor to explore edges, dualisms, indeterminacies and the possibility of nondual apprehension. It takes the form of a narrative essay in which the intertidal zone, that shifting region between land and sea, is represented both as a metaphor of liminality, and as a “real”, biophysical ecosystem which is an embodiment of nondualism. The speaker's perspective is informed by Buddhist theory and a sense of ecological urgency, and situated in the particularities of living in a coastal neighbourhood. In its concern with narratives of place, the essay foregrounds the inextricable relationships between environment or location and cultural practice. As an example of what some people are calling narrative scholarship, it suggests implicitly the need for extending our work in literary criticism and theory to include writing in “other” genres and for wider audiences.