In the pre-dawn darkness of a slumbering Dunedin, the spiritual arise to cleanse themselves from the sins of the night. David Loughrey followed them on their daily ritual, received a baptism of hot salt water, and came face to face with creation.
The wedge of a new day forces a barely definable fissure between sea and sky.
Through that cosmic crack leaks the slightest grey-blue wash of light.
The world is quiet; the angry, the untamed and the overexcited are still negotiating the confused symbolism of their disorganised dreamscape.
Most of the rest of the city is doing the same.
In Dunedin it is 6am on a week day.
But while the masses sleep, a religious few breathe a more sanctified air.
Intent on spiritual purification, they sweep past those made insensible by slumber in darkened dwellings, mocking their indolent ways.
Because fire is coming to the sky, the seas are boiling with possibility, and the daily cleansing renewal of baptism - for we all start the day begrimed with original sin - beckons.
It is best to drive to the front through the darkened streets, if you are too far away from St Clair.
For at that time the earth is without form, and void; and darkness is upon the face of the deep.
The city hums slightly.
On the footpaths dark human shapes heave into view, then slip away into the rear view mirror.
The orderly grid of South Dunedin street lights flickers on the flat.
In Caversham a man jogs uncomfortably along, and in Forbury Rd women walk dogs large and small.
On the Esplanade three surfers in full-length black wetsuits stride through the gloom for the grey, threatening Pacific.
Others park and pad softly through the dying night - a line of them with towels and goggles and intent - towards the holy water.
But let us stand for a minute, and drink in the scene, before we take the plunge.
The air is different in the morning.
Despite a light sea mist it has an urgent clarity; the bulk of the still black hills looms heavy, while the line of the Mt Cargill hilltop traces a stark separation between earth and sky.
To the lungs the air tastes sweet and fresh and full of possibility.
It lightly intoxicates a mind and body emerging from the dark of night.
A lightly curved boundary line of orange glows where turf allows surf no passage.
To the line of the penitent we are drawn, in though the doors that shine forth the light of grace.
Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, we have a need of the new birth of baptism.
In the St Clair Hot Salt Water Pool we trust.
Entry is just $6.
The tiles on the dressing room wall are baptismal white, and from the concrete steps above the water the waves are viewed from the side as they sweep past and towards the shore.
Under a now azure sky, above a rippling aqua-blue pool, the crown of creation is laid out before us.
The colours, the light, the heaving seas flicker and fade as we seem to slip from consciousness and fall into the waters, diving deep, deep, freed from the power of sin and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of the pool.
Our strong arms drag our wetly shining bodies through the water, sweeping past the floating lane markers.
Pure of thought, with hearts pumping oxygenated goodness through our veins, the stuff of life burns within us.
And we emerge, 20 laps later, from the embrace of salt water kept at a comforting 28, feeling warm and well chlorinated.
Dried and showered, we walk among the pure into the emerging day.
Bodies and souls are cleansed from the degradations of night.
Our senses are alive, and our will is strong.
We are fitter, cleaner, and much, much holier than thou.
And someone says let there be light - and there is light.
The elongated split on the edge of the heavens bursts wide with golden reds, and a watercolour pink brushes across the bottom of dark grey morning clouds.
And a burning orb rises from the sea.
It lights up the surfers who have managed half an hour in the darkness on the face of the deep unscathed.
It turns the clouds red, then white.
And to welcome the newly baptised it gently rains.
That gentle rain forms a rainbow that bursts from the soil of St Clair, and towers high, high into the morning sky.
And the baptised go forth to be fruitful and multiply, to replenish the earth, and subdue it, and most importantly of all, to have dominion over the fish of the sea.
For from that sea they have emerged, ready for the day.
And behold, they are very good.
