For Thor - 29 - Deepest Deep

Mother Ocean. Being able to rest near the ocean is probably the biggest reason I agreed to come on this trip. The trifecta of sand, surf and sunshine would smooth the jagged edges of my heart and be a healing balm for the suffering I've lived with since you died eight weeks ago.

Waves crash on the shore with a steadfast constancy that predates our human race, there is an ancient knowing there. The mother of all the waters is big enough to swallow me whole into that still oneness that rests in her vast depths. The ocean's saltiness is proof, to me, that she is a repository of tears. All the tears shed from all the suffering in the whole eternity are pooled together in these primordial and wise waters. What better place to empty this broken bleeding heart?

When we arrived at Cocoa Beach, I could hardly wait to get my feet in the sand. My toes were itching to feel the water pull the sand from beneath them and the agony out of my soul along with it. I felt the ocean breeze like an embrace and the sound of the surf welcomed me with her song. "Come, my daughter. Rest your head. Lay down the burden of your heart. Sit a while. Tell me everything."

Existentialism is my great preoccupation when I am around the ocean. A chord deep inside is me is struck when I first hear the sound of the surf. It resonates throughout my being integrating itself into my thoughts, words, and deeds. I am more silent. More still. More in touch with the Truth. Creative dreaming is amplified. I register beauty with all my senses; have you ever smelled a sunrise or tasted the wind? This visit to the shore is no different except for one big thing. This time, I carry the burden of being a bereaved mother with me. I yearn to unpack the vast mountain of jumbled emotions and sorrow on the warm sand and let the sun and wind pick through them. I want to cast the questions that plague me out into the vast expanse of the sea - an SOS message in a bottle to the cosmos. I wonder about you. And me. And how I can learn to move again. I want to know where you are. What happened after you died? I want to write messages to you in the sand and let the waves deliver these notes to you as they wash across and erase them.

I was awake last night as the full moon shone over the inky green and black surface of the sea. The silver white light twinkled off a million little waves as they sparkled and danced for a bit and then fell back into the water. Great swells gathered together to form the big waves that come ashore. It is easy to see how similar we are to the waves on the ocean. Our lives are like the water that rises into a wave. Empowered by an irresistible current and a life force that pushes us riding higher and higher, we ultimately crash upon the sand or roll back into the ocean itself. Some waves are big. Some are small. Some have spray peeling back from their crest in spectacular displays. Some pound the shore with a terrible force and others lap gently on the sand delivering seashells in their wake. No matter the size or the length of time the wave dances, or how much of a splash it made or how silent it was, all of them come to their end. All of them dissolve back into the sea.

Our lives -- and especially your life -- is fleeting, like these waves on the ocean. We are born and rise full of energy and potential. We live a while, dancing across the surface of the water with all the other waves. And then, when it's time for that energy to move in a new direction, the wave just falls back into the sea. Are we not like that?

So my questions of "where are you?" and "where did you go?" are answered by the sea. You are That. We are all That - the I AM of Moses. But what about that wave that was you in your short and brilliant life? Did it exist as something tangible and real? Was it ever anything other than the ocean? How can I follow this sorrow down into the depths to where I can know the truth? What does it want to reveal?

I can see that our tendency is to dwell on the surface, focusing on the waves and less on the deep expanse of power that rests beneath. We get confused when we identify ourselves as a wave. We are comical in our attempt to declare ourselves separated from all other the other waves and estranged even from the water itself.

I sat with this concept and followed it intensely since that is what sorrow is leading me to do. It began to be clear how easy it is to slip beneath the surface and live from the perspective of being the water, not the wave. We are all connected in the vast expanse of the sea of creation. The water that is in the wave is the same water that is in the deepest deep of the peace that passeth all understanding.

The memory of the wave-life you lived is beautiful to recall. It is a cherished and treasured story that we tell and savor for the love it brings up in our hearts. But it is not who you are. When you died, the wave you were riding rolled up on the shore and ended the story of your life, this life. But you belong, as ever, to the whole vast unknowable deep peace from which we all arise. It is here when I dive deeply beneath the busy currents on the surface; where I find you resplendent with the greatest love and light. I have found where you, as love, reside. This is what sorrow and the deep blue sea opened up inside of me...this knowing.

From the Deepest Deep of the Biggest Big, 

I love you,
Mom