The Hermit Crab

I spent the day at the beach on Wednesday. In the morning it was low tide but coming in. My daughter Bianca and Iwent to look for treasures. We picked up empty shells of different shapes and sizes, feathers from the sea gulls, sea tumbled pieces of bricks and sea glass and every so often a small piece of drift wood. When we filled up the big plastic cups we brought we took our treasures back to my parent's home and rinsed off the sand.

After we had lunch it was back to the beach for the afternoon. The tide had come in and the water was so clear and clean. We put down our chairs and towels and went in the water. It was cold at first but not that numbing cold that actually makes you hurt. Little by little we inched our way deeper and deeper. As soon as I was able to totally duck in the water I was fine. I swam and enjoyed the energy from the salt water. I love how the salt holds you up and it is so easy to float. I made my way into that water a few times during the afternoon because the sun was so hot I needed relief. On one of my trips in the water, something happened to catch my eye. I don't know why I noticed this. I have seen many shells before but there was something about this one. I looked and looked and finally saw that this shell had legs. I was able to grab it and I brought it out of the water into the light. For the first time in 51 yrs of going to this beach, I had found a hermit crab. I was very excited about finding this small animal and I showed my family. Of course I couldn't keep this little animal but I did get to take pictures of it before I let it go free.

For days I wondered about the meaning of my finding this animal. I looked in my animal totem book but the hermit crab was not there. I knew in my heart there was a message there but I just wasn't finding it. For me to see this very small animal through the water was amazing. I can't believe I even noticed it so I knew I was meant to find meaning. Tonight I went looking online for an answer. I got it from "From Gift From The Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindberg. she says …" One is free, like the hermit crab, to change one’s shell. "

These past few months I have been fighting change. I have been holding on to life as I knew it not as I know it today. Deep inside I know I am changing and it is a change for the better but any change is difficult. I need to leave the past behind and go on to my future. I need to trust that I will be led in the right direction. Time to shed that old shell that has become too small and look for a better fitting one with room to grow.

An observation I made on Wednesday is that the beach I have visited every summer of my life is changing. The water was cleaner, the sandpipers were back and I hadn't seen them in years. There were terns swimming on the water. I am not sure what kind of terns they were but I had only seen them once in before at this beach. I am not sure if these changes are good or not. Hermit crabs are something new to that beach. The crab was in a periwinkle shell. I didn't notice many periwinkles on the rocks. They are usually everywhere. Over the years the starfish disappeared. Could these changes be happening because of global warming? I am no scientist to see there are many changes happening in our physical world and also in our spiritual world. I guess for me it is time to change also. Love and Light Anne