In a ceremony that seemed as much spiritual as it was political in nature, about 50 local residents joined hands along Preston Beach today at noon, symbolically forming a human wall to protect the waterfront from the threat of oil spills.

The protest was part of a coordinated worldwide effort called "Hands Across The Sand," organized to protest off-shore oil drilling and in favor of renewable energy sources. 

Locally, the protest was joined by members of the Clifton Improvement Association (CIA), the trust that owns Preston Beach and Beach Bluff Park at the Marblehead-Swampscott line. 

"When we link hands, we become more than our small selves," said CIA President and Co-founder Lynn Nadeau. "We become part of a unified self."

During a ceremony inside the beach park's sun sculpture -- a circle of stone columns that mark the positions of the sun at the change of seasons -- speakers stepped onto a stone platform at the center of the circle to address the gathered crowd.

State Rep. Lori Ehrlich, D-Marblehead, a co-founder of the Swampscott-based environmental group HealthLink, noted the harsh lessons of the ongoing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

"There's lessons to be learned," Ehrlich said. "We have to find a way to transition into a more sustainable way of living. The consequences if we do not are apparent in the Gulf."

The message of renewable energy was neatly tied to the Cape Wind off-shore wind farm approved for construction in Nantucket Sound. Marblehead native Mark Rodgers, communications director for Cape Wind, attended the event with his young son.

"My work with Cape Wind has been really exciting," said Rodgers, who now lives in Falmouth, but was invited to join the event. "I wish there was an instantaneous answer and we could transition to a clean energy economy, but it doesn't happen overnight."

People passed around petitions and postcards that will be sent to Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, urging him to support the clean energy bill now stalled in the Senate.

At noon, Don Orne, the official "sacred site convener" for the CIA, struck a metal gong and the protesters stood in a line along the beach, facing the sea. For 15 minutes, they held hands and sent silent prayers for recovery in the Gulf.

Orne read from a poem he wrote for the occasion, saying the assembled environmentalists are "guardians against the tide of oil and sludge."

"The answer to the gushing hole is the prayers from you and me," Orne said.

Preston Beach improvements 

Before the start of the protest, about two dozen CIA members and community volunteers got busy with the hard work of grading and leveling the sand, laying down wooden-plank pathways, installing park benches and digging out dead vegetation at the beach-side park.

This past winter's storms had done a number on the park, as storms had done in 2007, badly damaging the sea wall, causing it to collapse. CIA recently completed construction on a new sea wall. 

Along with last September's addition of the sun circle -- which was designed and built from natural Basalt columns by Marblehead architect and sculptor Bruce Greenwald -- the park has been renewed for community enjoyment.

Nadeau said the CIA's next step is to add a bath house in the parking lot across the street from the beach, which will necessitate more fundraising. Last year, CIA raised more than $350,000 to fund the sea wall reconstruction, she said.

High Noon

Ten million hands will touch today

Held high towards the sky

To stand for pure clean energy

To kiss crude oil goodby

We stand as guardians

Against the tide

Of oil and sludge and greed

We hold the wealth

Of tomorrow's child

In our hearts that begin to bleed

For the thousands that have lost their jobs

For the precious deep blue sea

For all the animals, fish and birds

For the land now soiled but free

Stand we now for all of life

Stand together and be

The answer to the gushing hole

Is the prayers of you and me

 Don Orne-original poem for Hands Across the Sands