The Ocean is My Spirit Guide

We shall not cease from explo­ration, and the end of all our explor­ing will be to arrive where we start­ed and know the place for the first time. ~T.S. Eliot

It’s my third day at the beach and I rise ear­ly, eager to start my walk before any­one else in the house stirs. The best first step hap­pens in moon­light, the sun awak­en­ing as slow­ly as my words. I walk to the water’s edge and wig­gle my bare feet in the water.

Like most coastal areas, Holden Beach, North Carolina expe­ri­ences two high tides every day. The moon caus­es the tides, since a lunar day runs 50 min­utes longer than a solar day. The moon’s grav­i­ta­tion­al pull gen­er­ates some­thing called the tidal force, which caus­es Earth’s water to “bulge out” on the sides clos­est to and far­thest away from the moon. These water bulges cre­ate high tides.

As I hap­pen to be here dur­ing a full moon, the tides are even high­er than nor­mal. What this means for my dai­ly walk is an ever-chang­ing coast­line, a trail that is soft with sand one day and hard-packed and shell-strewn the next, a short beach one day fol­lowed by an aston­ish­ing­ly dis­tant water line the next.

It’s like hik­ing the same trail across the sea­sons; it’s both con­stant­ly shift­ing and seem­ing­ly eter­nal. It’s the explo­ration that Eliot spoke of in his poem “Four Quartets,” a med­i­ta­tion on man’s rela­tion­ship to time and the merg­ing of the past, present, and future with the eter­nal now.  We walk the same coast because we are called to by the Keeper of the Stars.

Oceans are a human life­line; water makes up over 70% of the earth’s sur­face and also over 70% of the human body. Our body is almost the same den­si­ty as water, per­mit­ting us to float rather than drown. The seas and oceans pro­duce over half of our usable oxy­gen and absorb 50 times more car­bon diox­ide than our atmos­phere. The more we learn about the deep­est reach­es of the dark waters, the more that infor­ma­tion points back to who we are, liv­ing things built of age­less and com­pa­ra­ble ele­ments, ebbing and flow­ing with time. We call it Earth, but from space, you most­ly see water.

Indeed, we were born in the small­est of oceans, an embryo of fins and gills. We then spend our life­time being called back to the salty sup­port of the amni­ot­ic brine, long to be bap­tized and reborn in those med­i­c­i­nal saline waters. Regardless of birth­place, the col­or blue is over­whelm­ing­ly the cho­sen favorite for the major­i­ty of humans; we asso­ciate the col­or blue with calm con­tent­ment and intu­itive­ly seek water when in exis­ten­tial crisis.

I walk, occa­sion­al­ly stop­ping to scrounge the shore for shark’s teeth. I won­der why we are pulled so strong­ly, am curi­ous from where this feel­ing of con­nec­tion ris­es. I sus­pect we are pulled toward the fun­da­men­tal simplicity.

The visu­al hori­zon is stream­lined, flat blue as far as the eye can see. The audi­to­ry per­spec­tive also strikes a chord of basic recog­ni­tion in the human heart and mind; the sound plays on loop, the gen­tle cacoph­o­ny of the water kiss­ing the shore and being ever turned away like a spurned lover. Whooshing and lap­ping, a drum­beat that keeps time as each foot­print is quick­ly erased. It’s a cog­ni­tive nap, a nec­es­sary break for minds increas­ing­ly onslaught with infor­ma­tion­al input.

And it’s this rest that primes our minds to feel awe and con­nec­tion, switch­es us from a state of “me” to one of “we,” allows us to feel the endur­ing inter­con­nect­ed­ness of all exis­tence. The ocean reminds us that we are but a drop, both incon­se­quen­tial and absolute­ly essen­tial. It enhances and expands any state of aware­ness, sharp­ens our sens­es to the point we feel both the con­stant alter­ation and the cease­less­ly immutable at once.

And all the while we know that calm is tem­po­rary, wise­ly car­ry a bone-deep respect for the wild rough­ness of the ocean, rec­og­niz­ing that dis­tant scud­ding clouds could move quick­ly inland toward vio­lence, leav­ing only wind and waves and tur­bu­lent water, unyield­ing and unfor­giv­ing. I’ve always pre­ferred to keep my feet firm­ly on the sand, def­er­en­tial to the insis­tent power.

Deferential but still rev­er­en­tial, an emo­tion­al response that occurs inde­pen­dent­ly of cog­ni­tive thought. I’m always try­ing to under­stand, pick things apart to ana­lyze and com­pre­hend. Why must I always need to know?

Not this time. I’m con­tent to accept that there are mys­ter­ies greater than my under­stand­ing, am will­ing to go with my gut and let my exhaust­ed mind rest. I want, like Eliot, to arrive where I start­ed. I’m will­ing to trust that Great Unknown.

I wade up to my waist and dive in.