This is something I wrote as contemplation and encouragement for facing death (was shared with a specific person with this in mind). I wanted to convey something that I thought was life affirming, as one stood at the edge of this world and pondered the mystery of the one to come. I wrote this at night while sitting on the shore of the Pacific Ocean here in Los Angeles. Certainly this conveys some of the magnetism and majesty that draws me to the ocean time and again.
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From One Lover of the Ocean to Another
What secrets does the Ocean have for me tonight?
Induced by some long-ago lit fuse, waves rise and crack the shoreline, rhythmically dancing along the sand. Water surging, swelling, crescendoing, until a climax is reached. Symphonic instruments of water and land, and those of the wind, weave together their harmonies, and then dissolve...
Yet the symphony is far from over, as another measure is played, and then another...as each wave conveys the perpetuity of the life of the Ocean -- and of Life at large.
The orchestration tonight relates tales from distant lands, for the rhythms of the surf have likewise been savored on remote shores. Other hearts, perhaps human or maybe of dolphins and great whales, have also pleasured in this melody. Though the world above – that I see – is separated from the world below the waves, both are waters poured into existence from the same Source of Life, and I feel deep kinship.
It is that profound wonderment of standing at the edge of one world and beholding another that is the essence of why I am drawn to this place tonight.
The undulating surface reflects the lights along the beach – silvery and shimmery, like youthful eyes. Waves reach out with hands and envelop themselves into the moment, with no particular worry for the future, as if little children were frolicking together and skipping toward the shore. Farther out, I see myself floating and being rocked in the arms of the Ocean, immersed in the uncertainty of her deep unknown, humbled by the great expanse, gasping for breath and melting in the awe of her renewing, ageless beauty. Surely the heart of a child beats inside the chest of Infinity.
How utterly mystifying is the cosmic balance that allows the smallest to mingle among the greatest. So much more inscrutable is the mystery that we even exist at all. All my concerns are cleansed by the water of this most humbling of contemplations.
I walk up to the Ocean and thank her for the companionship tonight, as she kisses the sand and gently anoints my feet. This is how Creation is – always serving, always teaching – patiently waiting for us to listen to deeper, transcendent Truths. Even in her unknowable majesty, she graciously accounts for the least of all creatures.
I leave with a gift of eternal value, one that has fully made me whole. Tonight I touched the face of the Sacred, and experienced the sweet realization of my Soul.