Paua Power

Sometimes when I walk the beach there's a glistening empty paua shell near my next footfall - a gift from the sea. 

Luminous Layers 

The crusty outer rind that the living paua shows the underwater world gives no hint of the internal treasure it protects. I don't mean the meaty culinary creature that locals here dive for, I mean the opalescent wonderland of the shell itself. The empty bowl of a paua shell shimmers with colours that seem to have been harvested from the ocean's sparkle and laid down in layers. And in some ways they have been. The luminous iridescence is caused by light dancing and refracting through super-thin overlapping layers of calcium carbonate laid down along molecules in the shell's structure. The intensity of that colour is engendered by the genetics of the species but is also influenced by regional variables, water temperature and the seaweed diet of that particular paua.

Our paua, Haliotis iris, is only found around New Zealand shores but this species is part of the greater global abalone family. This is our iconic paua valued for inlay and artwork, and spiritually significant as a keeper of harmony, healing, clarity and connection. Its inner shell radiates rich greens and blues with hints of pink. 

In this watercolour painting called Ripples that I painted years ago, the hands hover under the floating shell in reverence and receptivity to its energetic broadcast.  

 

Stored movement and Colour 

A much more recent paua painting, Paua Potential, also speaks of what is stored in the shell and what still transmits to those tuned to resonate with its song. Part of this painting features as the banner image on my website homepage. To me a paua shell stores movement as much as colour. It holds the vibration of the creature who lived in it, with the distinctive holes evidence of its out-breath and its reproduction.

Within its bony bowl, the paua has also harvested and stored the echoes of the ocean and the scintillating light that washed it with life. The shell is vibration and colour in-waiting.....waiting to be recognized and released, because to hold the shell is to sense those frequencies. The air and sunlight gradually break down its rigid structure into brittle pieces that can be finger-crushed into specks of natural glitter.

I secretly sprinkle these on my garden as a source of vibrational nutrients. Sun, sea and star dust glinting here on the ground.

 

Silver-Pink Baby 

Years ago when I was living further north, a smaller paua with a distinctive pink ridged outer-rind used to wash up on our coast. It was a more textured but more refined shell that nestled easily in the palm of my hand. I learnt that this was the silver paua, Haliotis Australis, with a pearlescent lustre glowing in its bowl. It shares the same sea as its bigger cousin but is less commonly found and more subtly adorned. 

My earliest and most significant paua painting, Paua Power, was of this little cutie - made big. The shell literally covers most of a full-size watercolour sheet and has such largesse that it hovers over the whole encircling landscape of life. It reveals both its connection to source and the subtle energetic breath that the paua exhales - whatever that may symbolically be.

This shell is an empty vessel simply holding space. I had to be very restrained and sit on my painting hands to let it remain that way...a huge void...waiting...receiving...transmitting...