A beach after a storm can be ugly - piles of twisted driftwood and splintered twigs and branches, and the inevitable modern malady of plastic bottles, bits of Styrofoam, tattered pairless shoes and tangles of discarded nylon fishing line and netting. There's never a lack of body parts: a broken-off arm from one of the many editions of the Barbie doll or an eyeless head with salt-water-bedraggled synthetic blond hair...

One of my beachcombing rituals is the pursuit of Ojos de Venado -- buckeyes, or doe eyes -- the seeds from a tropical vine that grows along the banks of tropical rivers. The plant itself is the Mucana Puriens, more commonly known as the Velvet bean, sea bean, cowhage or bengal bean. It contains alkaloids and powerful medicinal substances and has been used in Mexico, Central and South America, India and other areas where it occurs naturally, as a potent remedy for a number of ailments, and it's properties are being studied with interest by the pharmaceuticals.

The seeds themselves are beautiful and compelling, looking like a slightly flattened reddish-brown, sometimes grayish, sphere banded by black. Their texture is hard and almost plastic-like, with a marbled surface that feels good when rubbed under the thumb. The seeds commonly are released by the plant into the rivers along which they occur, and then are transported to the sea to be deposited at random along the surrounding beaches.

These seeds are supposed to bring good luck - or rather, as we were told by a small Mexican boy one day -- they keep bad luck away, which I think could be a much more important quality. The locals often make Ojos de Venado into key chains or integrate them into handmade necklaces. To keep an Ojo on your being, whether in a pocket or strung onto your purse or key-string, is always a good thing.

The search for Ojos de Venado is a singular pursuit. I find that you have to have your eyes focused extremely specifically for the spotting of these beautiful little seeds that fit so well, by the pair, into the palm of your hand. Just pick up a couple of them and click them against each other, and you'll see they make the best worry beads in the world.

As you walk the beach, if you look at the pieces of driftwood, the shells and wonderful stones that litter the beaches, and if you don't keep your eyes peeled and focused for the Ojo de Venado, it's very likely you'll miss the majority of them. Spotting them takes a peculiar concentration, but once you see one on a recently storm-washed strand, and bend down to pick it up, just try sliding your eyes around without moving the rest of your body, and you may just find that you spot another... and then with just a slight twist of your head, there'll be one more. From then on they just might multiply.

They seem to come in caches - one stretch will hold a huge number, just seeming to sprout out from the sand, and then there'll be almost nothing for the next 100 meters... On some occasions, I've come back from after-storm beachcombing with one- or two-hundred seeds clicking around in the plastic bag I can inevitably find tossed onto the shore, and that serves as a perfect gathering bag. No use bringing plastic to the beach - would you take coal to Newcastle?

It is times like these that make me feel that no harm can touch me for the course of my entire lifetime, so laden am I with these warders-off of evil...