There is an almost perfect concave-cupped cove in Machiasport that will listen to your thoughts. It has been here for eons of time. Its shore is covered in stones of all size, shape and color. There is no sand here, only brightly polished stones of granite, red rhyolite, quartzite and other rock reduced in size as primordial seconds roll into millenniums. The waters of Machias Bay with wave after wave blesses the beach with answers to questions, many not yet asked.

Photo courtesy Ryan Maluski Malagara

Jasper Beach is a special place. Its remoteness, though right off a road, embraces a collective essence as one passes through the small villages of Larabee, Bucks Harbor, East Side and Starboard and provides a stoic welcome that will relieve just about any of the day’s ills.

That road known as “Port” has a beginning point in Machias and another in Starboard. In between is that “remote essence” that can only be found Downeast. A working harbor, white-steeple churches, friendly hand waves, historic parks and buildings, trees, hills, mudflats and ocean views that touch the horizon greet the traveler. For when traveling Downeast there are no end points, only beginnings.

Photo courtesy Ryan Maluski Malagara

Many people who visited Jasper Beach have shared their experience. In writings, in song, many in photographs, video and in sculpture, people express the connection they feel while visiting. Delicately balanced stone cairns are built or messages uniquely spelled out in different size and colors of stone, even a large lobster — shaped from beach stones — arrived to claim its 15-minutes of fame just a couple of years ago. Created by a family visiting the area, it was their totem to both a special place and an artful expression of their gratitude for their questions being answered that day.

Whenever I visit Jasper Beach I make time to allow this place to give me its time. I sit with eyes closed. The wind arrives, pulling at my thoughts. The Downeast sunlight on my face is a warm compress that soothes, allowing me to relax even more and enjoy the show. The lights go dim as the ocean’s waves beckon. I can hear each wave borne off the ocean’s floor rise, move forward as older waves move back out to sea. The wave curls then crashes onto the beach of stones, creeping ever closer towards me. When the wave flattens on the shore, the stone’s song is suspended in silence until the wave pulls back, a grand finale of nature’s play over and over again with a myriad of stones singing and clapping their appreciation. And I am here, and in my mind I am clapping, too.

Each of the seemingly infinite number of stones harbor something unique — perhaps the answer to your question. Anyone can be found in thought amidst the song and stories being made here each and every day. I describe it as a chorus of “yesterdays” taking visitors to a better place at that moment.

To spend time at this place with eyes closed, asking questions, sharing feelings or simply sitting quiet, alone and detached from it all listening to the stones sing a song that changes with every wave is special. Every second of time has been captured here and reveals itself through the interaction of the tides, the ocean’s waves and the stone’s storytelling.

It is a rare occurrence to find reliability given that a companion to our day-to-day machinations is unreliability. It is a troubling constant that stands erect through our weeks, our months and our years. Life’s chaos and unpredictability are undaunted.

At Jasper Beach there is reliability, there is calm, there is resolute determination, there is serenity and beauty, there is water and there are the stones and the stories they tell to those that listen. It is as if being surrounded by trusted friends in a place that offers a solemnity unmatched amidst tide and water.

And the exclamation point is that these revelations are seen, heard and enjoyed by all who visit. The tide then returns to wash all of it back into the sea so others can arrive with clean slate in hand and have their own experience again and again. Lives are revealed in stones and water every day. And like the lives of those who a visit like this touches, the stones must remain as they are, where they are, so they can continue doing what they have been doing for eons of time. Because to arrive, spend time and then leave a place as it is found gives added meaning to both that moment and especially the place that moment found for you.

© 2024 RJ Heller

First published: The Quoddy Tides, April 12, 2024