“Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.” ~ Rumi
Day four of my residency in this awe inspiring place on the planet. Living this close to the ocean one begins to breathe in synch with its rhythms. The ebb and flow of the tides, the sometimes calm and sometimes turbulent surface. The continuous movement of this vast mysterious creature who is filled with life and power. She is definitely enveloping my psyche.
I never loose sight of her while I am here. Even at night when it is completely dark I can hear her breathing outside my window. Sometimes she becomes more turbulent and like last night, her crashing waves at high tide woke me up. I got up, stoked the fire, sat in the dark and listened to her crashing against the rocky beach. Night Magic!
She is both terrifying and calming. She offers up glimpses of what lives beneath. Seals and Sea Lions pop their heads up from time to time. Sea Lions let out an occasional roar that pierces the soundscape of the ocean's breath.
Large stones appear and disappear with the tides. Birds dive into and land on her body with a familiarity and understanding that she is their source and sustenance. Ducks, loons, many birds I don't know, and even a young bald eagle came and sat on a rock to watch the rhythms of the sea.
I had no idea how focused on the ocean and her movement I would become. I have been painting her waves constantly. I walk and sit by her shoreline several times a day and just practice being with her and listening to the steadfast heartbeat of life itself.
The beach is made up of rocks of all shapes, colours and sizes which invite me to touch and hold them. They have been polished smooth by the oceans eternal movement and now find themselves on this beach. I love to explore their different natures and move them into new relationships with other elements along the beach. I let my curiosity lead me as I play with different stones and find this to be an endlessly fascinating game. These stones come from deep time and my brief interaction with them is but a blink in eternity and I am honoured and humbled to spend a moment with them.
Ocean
I am in love with Ocean lifting her thousands of white hats in the chop of the storm, or lying smooth and blue, the loveliest bed in the world. In the personal life, there is
always grief more than enough, a heart-load for each of us on the dusty road. I suppose there is a reason for this, so I will be patient, acquiescent. But I will live nowhere except here, by Ocean, trusting equally in all the blast and welcome of her sorrowless, salt self.
~ Mary Oliver