Pilgrim’s Journal — Ogmore-by-Sea: The Turtle

Sometimes a pilgrimage doesn't reveal where it's taking you.

It reveals where it began.

As I was leaving Pembrokeshire, I believed I was nearing the end of a chapter.

Weeks of walking had carried me through an ancient chapel, natural arches, and across the living coastline.

By then, I had begun to notice that the pilgrimage seemed to have a memory of its own.

Threads I'd first encountered at Woodland Glade had continued to weave themselves through the journey in increasingly improbable ways.

The Rose of Venus had quietly accompanied me from London to Uffington, Glasgow, and finally Pembrokeshire.

The white horse had appeared at the outset of the pilgrimage, only to greet me in forms I could never have anticipated—including, somehow, a softly luminous horse tooth resting among the pebbles of a Pembrokeshire beach.

Even the church continued its conversation.

All Saints became Church Rock.

Church Rock opened Church Door.

Which opened to the Living Shore.

Again and again, the landscape seemed to speak in a language of continuity.

The threads felt increasingly interconnected, but they all appeared to belong to the same more recent story.

I hadn't yet realised that one final encounter was waiting beside the sea.

One that would reach back almost twenty years.

Back to Sydney.

Back to Kings Cross.

Back to the moment I first began asking questions I didn't yet have the language to ask.

Back to the awakening that altered the course of my life.

The previous evening, as had become my custom throughout the pilgrimage, I had turned to divination before deciding where to travel next.

Of the handful of fossil-rich shorelines I had been considering, Ogmore-by-Sea emerged with unusual clarity.

By then, I'd fallen in love with beachcombing—the simple pleasure of following the tide in search of shells, fossils and whatever else the sea might choose to reveal.

The answer filled me with an immediate sense of excitement.

So, on my journey back to the glade, I decided to stop briefly at Ogmore-by-Sea.

The shoreline there is unlike the beaches I'd spent the previous days exploring. Great ridges of weathered limestone stretch towards the sea, creating countless little crevices where the tide leaves behind unexpected treasures.

I had barely begun searching when something caught my eye beside the rocks.

It sparkled in the light.

Copper.

A little turtle.

Its shell was missing.

Curious, I turned it over.

Engraved on its underside was a perfect three-by-three grid of numbers.

My eyes landed first on the seven.

Then, without really thinking about it, I began reading the grid aloud from the top left corner.

"Four. Nine. Two. Three. Five. Seven. Eight. One. Six."

Then, almost absentmindedly:

"How random."

And yet, something about the arrangement gave me pause. It felt strangely familiar, as though I'd encountered it somewhere before.

The thought felt too improbable to entertain for long.

Besides, I had only just arrived.

If this was what Ogmore-by-Sea had offered within the first few minutes, I couldn't wait to discover what else might be hiding among the rocks.

I smiled to myself, slipped the little turtle into my pocket and continued exploring the shoreline.

The next discovery was alive.

Clambering over the limestone, I found a small catshark stranded among the rocks, a fishing hook caught firmly in its mouth.

It was a beautiful being, its skin delicate shades of pink and purple not unlike the shells I'd spent the previous days admiring.

Carefully, I removed the hook and carried it back to the water.

I watched for a few moments as it disappeared beneath the surface, wishing it well before continuing on my way.

It only occurs to me now, writing this, that within the space of ten minutes, the sea had entrusted one creature to me and invited me to return another.

Nature, it seems, always has a few surprises in store.

Only later that evening, back in the Pilgrim's Wagon, did curiosity finally get the better of me.

I took the little turtle from my pocket and turned it over once more.

The grid of numbers still felt familiar.

So I took a photograph and began searching.

What I discovered left me sitting in stunned silence.

It wasn't a manufacturer's mark.

It wasn't random numbers.

It was a magic square.

The Lo Shu had found me.

According to ancient Chinese tradition, the Lo Shu first appeared upon the back of a turtle emerging from the River Luo, carrying within it a pattern of perfect harmony. Every row, column and diagonal adds to fifteen, revealing an elegant mathematical balance that has fascinated people for thousands of years.

The more I read, the more deeply it resonated.

Nearly twenty years earlier, I was nineteen years old and living in Sydney.

Up until that point, I wouldn't have described myself as spiritual.

I wasn't searching for God.

If anything, I was searching for experience.

My curiosity had led me to Erowid, an online archive dedicated to altered states of consciousness, ethnobotany and human experience.

Looking back now, I can see that I was already seeking.

I simply didn't know what I was seeking for.

Then came Kings Cross.

And afterwards, nothing was ever quite the same.

Not long after the awakening that profoundly reshaped my life, another magic square entered my world.

The 6x6 Magic Square of the Sun, known in the Western esoteric tradition as the Kamea of the Sun.

In this square, every row, column and diagonal adds to 111, the complete pattern summing to 666.

For centuries, the square had been associated with illumination, consciousness and divine order.

At the time, it seemed to arrive precisely when I needed it, speaking to me of radiance, purpose and the unfolding of who I was becoming.

Now, as I stood on the threshold of another profound chapter — letting go of a fixed home and beginning a life of continual movement — the Lo Shu arrived.

Not a magic square associated with the Sun.

One emerging from the waters of the Earth.

As I continued reading, another insight emerged.

The Lo Shu isn't simply about numbers.

It is often understood as a pattern of orientation.

Finding your centre.

Remaining balanced as circumstances change.

Living in harmony wherever life carries you.

I couldn't imagine a more fitting companion for the journey I was beginning.

Then my attention returned to the little turtle itself.

Its shell was gone.

At first glance, that seemed like damage.

Looking back now, I think it completed the teaching.

For weeks, shells had curiously accompanied my pilgrimage.

The hermit shell outside St Govan's Chapel.

The countless living whelk shells lining the inside of Church Door.

The spirals preserved in ancient stone.

Again and again, the shell had appeared as a symbol of home.

Then, just after leaving Pembrokeshire, I found a turtle without one.

At first I assumed something essential had been lost.

Looking back, I think the opposite was true.

The shell had disappeared.

The pattern remained.

And the pattern wasn't engraved upon its back for the world to admire.

It was hidden on its underbelly.

The most vulnerable part of the turtle.

The part closest to the earth.

That moved me deeply.

It felt as though the little turtle was revealing something my pilgrimage had been teaching me all along.

Perhaps home had never been the shell.

Not the cabin I had loved.

Not even the campervan that had become my Pilgrim's Wagon.

Perhaps home had always been something far simpler.

The quiet pattern from which I lived.

My presence.

My way of meeting the world.

The steady centre that remains, even when everything around it changes.

Since leaving Woodland Glade, I'd often reflected that I was learning to carry home with me.

Looking back now, I suspect the turtle had been smiling to itself all along.

At the time, I still had Woodland Glade waiting for me.

And yet, within a matter of weeks, life would invite me to put its teaching into practice.

Now here I am.

Writing these words from the other side of that threshold.

The turtle, it seems, knew what it was talking about.

And I find myself deeply grateful that, almost twenty years after the Kamea of the Sun entered my life, another ancient pattern now accompanies me.

The Lo Shu.

Its wisdom was simple.

Find your centre.

Trust the pattern.

Continue walking.

So far, it hasn't steered me wrong.