Dune faces aren’t really faces

Yet we can’t help but personalize the sentinels

They loom over summer frolics and winter mayhem with the same daunting attitude. But wait, that’s just projection. They are what they are, no human attributes required:

Geologic, angled outposts of a peninsula.

It’s tempting to say they are the front lines in the battle of ocean, wind, and sand, fighting a holding action against stronger forces, a natural Maginot Line more successful than that World War Two attempt — though they grudgingly surrender feet every year.

But there I go again, humanizing them, so unnecessary and, as we humans prove to be over and over, egocentric.

Tromping below, craning upward, their personalities emerge; the proud dune, ominous dune, fragile dune, harsh dune, gentle dune.

Damn, one sentence later I did it again!

I’ll try one more time:

There are many forms of consciousness in this world, and dunes likely have their version, but it is not the human kind.

Yet appreciation remains. With the calendar in a comparable slow retreat, August eroded away like every earlier month, the seasonal scarp of Labor Day upon us, it seems right to take a deep breath and share visions of our landscape’s defining edge.

With big thanks to Mike Fee for several contributions — between his great Thursday radio shows "Road Tripping"on WOMR/FMR, Mike also enjoys a little Dune Tripping — here’s an attempt at recognition, awareness, celebration, maybe even thanks.

Damn, I just did it again.

Photo by Mike Fee

Photo by Mike Fee

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