I feel the heat rising from the sand, coaxing my body into a quieter place, gently prying my fingers from the problems of this world, easing me into stillness. My toes curl and burrow beneath its surface, and for a moment I close my eyes, imagining that I could sink into the sand just as easily. To bury my body in the bake-oven of fluffy white beach, to be held there in the warmth, maybe that would ease the knots which have lodged themselves in my shoulders.
I tip my face to the sky, inhaling sunlight and the breeze which moves softly across the water, bringing with it a misty kiss from the sea. The surf keeps a soothing rhythm, rolling gently in and back out again, like the sleepy rise and fall of breath - easy, quietly, in surrender to the night. There is something in the movement here, the patterns at the shoreline, which so clearly proclaim the life force of the planet. The rocking of the waves and the shifting of the sand, the salt, the sun, the ever-moving air currents… all moving in unbroken union with each other. Moving within me.
I open my eyes and try to take it all in. Rising slowly, I move to see the tidepool left as the water receded. The surface is still, protected from the wind, smooth as glass, reflecting the sky and the world at its edges. Beneath the water there is life, swimming, spinning, circling… resisting the confinement found within the limits of the tiny body of water. There is also that which is motionless, a starfish, perhaps unaware of the limitations, perhaps confined before and resigned to this reality. But then again, maybe it believes it is in the sky itself, as it is reflected on the pool. Life here is easy to overlook if you don’t pause to study it, to look past the reflections.
Rocking back into the sand, looking this time at the reflections, I wonder how real they might be… the mirror image of this life around me, within me, the vision of possibilities. I’m tempted, as always, to reach out, to feel for myself and experience this reality. With the desire to touch the dream also comes the realization that in doing so I will disturb the stillness and the image reflected there. I ask myself again, as I have so often before – is the vision unobtainable? Meant for glimpsing on the glassy surface of tidepools or mountain lakes, but not meant to touch or to hold? Doubt wells up like a silent storm, churning around my heart as if it would consume me. I sink slowly back to Earth, the warm sand welcoming, comforting. I close my eyes again, and dream a tidepool dream.
I tip my face to the sky, inhaling sunlight and the breeze which moves softly across the water, bringing with it a misty kiss from the sea. The surf keeps a soothing rhythm, rolling gently in and back out again, like the sleepy rise and fall of breath - easy, quietly, in surrender to the night. There is something in the movement here, the patterns at the shoreline, which so clearly proclaim the life force of the planet. The rocking of the waves and the shifting of the sand, the salt, the sun, the ever-moving air currents… all moving in unbroken union with each other. Moving within me.
I open my eyes and try to take it all in. Rising slowly, I move to see the tidepool left as the water receded. The surface is still, protected from the wind, smooth as glass, reflecting the sky and the world at its edges. Beneath the water there is life, swimming, spinning, circling… resisting the confinement found within the limits of the tiny body of water. There is also that which is motionless, a starfish, perhaps unaware of the limitations, perhaps confined before and resigned to this reality. But then again, maybe it believes it is in the sky itself, as it is reflected on the pool. Life here is easy to overlook if you don’t pause to study it, to look past the reflections.
Rocking back into the sand, looking this time at the reflections, I wonder how real they might be… the mirror image of this life around me, within me, the vision of possibilities. I’m tempted, as always, to reach out, to feel for myself and experience this reality. With the desire to touch the dream also comes the realization that in doing so I will disturb the stillness and the image reflected there. I ask myself again, as I have so often before – is the vision unobtainable? Meant for glimpsing on the glassy surface of tidepools or mountain lakes, but not meant to touch or to hold? Doubt wells up like a silent storm, churning around my heart as if it would consume me. I sink slowly back to Earth, the warm sand welcoming, comforting. I close my eyes again, and dream a tidepool dream.
