Why I Love Brighton - Reason No. 45: New Age Bullshit
It's an occasional series - this is the first, don't worry about the number
An hour ago I’d just finished a day shift, tiredness dragging my body like a wet suit I’ve forgotten to take off. Sitting across from me is my friend rolling a cigarette with a fire of mischief and neuro-wrongness lighting her dark brown eyes. Fresh from a break-up we, being her friends at work, in unorganised altruism have been tag teaming in taking her mind off it. We’re planning on checking out one of a million events crackling across the city in May.
“Oh it’s full moon tonight - I normally go for a swim,” she says. I look quizzically at her.
“There’s a group, they do yoga on the beach then run into the sea and howl at the moon.”
“Lets go” i say
“Really?” she say excited
“Im going to need a swimsuit and an off licence”
Now I’m on the beach, Hove side. Sunset has smeared the background of the sky with pink and purple bruises obscured by dark blue clouds like stripes on a tiger. The beach has about thirty women on yoga mats surrounding two flag banners that read “Yoga In The Laines” and “Sauna In The Laines” between them is a small speaker. But most people are sitting serenely angled towards the sky and the beautiful blue green sea. It’s almost fully dark but still warm, the heavy clouds making it kinda feel like we’re indoors.
A few people are chatting in that rehearsed stiff small talk I’ve seen people do, my friend is smoking weed and the people on nearby mats are tolerating it with the occasional glance.
A middle aged white woman with a grey frizzy bob and navy gilet that screams ‘horse mom’ to anyone with eye-ears is collecting donations using a wireless doodad. I tune into their conversation
“...I’m going to do it naked”
“Wooooo”
“Yeah it’s so liberating - its part of the campaign I’d rather be buck naked..”
When it’s our turn to be asked we find out shes collecting for funding a new process for recycling nylon swimsuits. We decline.
Ambient music I honestly didn’t even notice was playing stops and attention is on the small short haired woman in a bright blue ethically sourced ethnic poncho and neon animal print leggings.
“HAPPY FULL MOON!” she exclaims and does twinkly fingers. Everyone dutifully repeats it back.
“Tonight if your feeling extra liberated some of us are taking all our clothes off and will be filmed as part of our ‘I’d rather be naked than contribute to landfill’ campaign
The couple that have been chatting next to us, one turns to the other
“Are you going to do it?”
“No, I’m American”
Twinkle-fingers continues
“We welcome Rob,” she gestures to an older dude near the speaker who seems covered in spiky white stubble. “Hes just back from the Chichester festival of electronic music and immersive art” Rob waves
“I’m just back from consulting with the UN to save the Rain forest and was luckily enough to sit with some elders in a sacred circle listening to the indigenous wisdom and I’m bringing this energy back to you.” I give my friend a look while Tinkle-fingers continues “condor and the eagle..spiritual and material world is coming together… era coming to an end… Scorpio moon rising which explains my dodgy tooth situation…”
My friend leans over and concedes.
“Yeah I know, but I’ve come here on some of my darkest days, forced myself sometimes, and left feeling genuinely euphoric”.
The naked swim begins while they still have the light and ten or so people run into the sea while being filmed. I look back to the path off the beach, there’s a dad and son watching, and a man with a dog filming on his phone. The humans are perplexed, the dog uninterested.
Back from the swim Twinkle-fingers leads everyone through a quick yoga routine - I pass, as at this point making my body do yoga would be like asking a collapsing bridge for elegance. The yoga is followed by a quick meditation. My eyes are not closed, I’m taken back to junior school when we would pray in assembly and I would open my eyes while everyone else prayed. That is to not to say I’m not meditating - sitting under a navy sky still smudged with red. A moment of stillness connected to the rocks beneath me, the gentle movement of cold air, the constant rhythm of the waves, and the warmth of my own body. For a moment I feel something more, maybe peace, maybe not - but something.
Then it comes time, I change into my swim shorts and we run into the sea, like a Brighton newbie I’ve forgotten my sea shoes but luckily the pain of the stones distracts from the bitter coldness of the salt sea. Briefly. The coldness is like a whole body punch. I swear so much that people around me start laughing. In an embarrassingly short amount of time I am done and retreat into my towel.
I do try and not yuck other peoples yum and I am self aware enough to know through a mixture of hard earnest cynicism and autism that some of the time I come across as judging, even sneering, and yes I know that makes me the cunt. But despite all that I did get something from my time on the beach. While I’m dressing I watch the others, everyone is smiling and laughing together. Most people are close to my age - middle aged doing dumb shit kids shit wrapped in borrowed spirituality. But there is joy here, release, and connection. And it should be noted that when I got home I spelt deeper and more restful than I had in years.
As we are walking away, leaving everyone to dance to the late nineties Goa trance mixed by Rob on the single speaker we see the full moon finally appear from a pocket of cloud. Behind us we hear the celebratory howl from the Muesli Moms and I am happy.
