Once upon a time
many many years ago
there was the great, great
sea.
The weight of the moon
as she circled the Earth
pulled
and tugged on the sea.
Pushed
and tugged.
The tides came
and went
and ebbed
and flowed
in
and out.
With the tide came waves
back
and forth
up
and down
in
and out.
Not on dry land did life first appear
but among the flowing waves
and the rising tide
and the back
and forth of the sea,
whose rhythms were reflected
in the first pulsations
of single-celled organisms.
Stay very, very still
and you will hear the sound of the sea.
In
and out.
In
and out.
Our very breath reveals our origins
and the sea lives
in the pushing
and pulling
in the tension
and release
in the constant pulsations
of our heart.
We were conceived in the sea
of fluids created by our mother and father.
Back
and forth.
In
and out
as the primordial waters continued to flow.
And in the sea of our mother’s womb
we rested
as its rhythm echoed around us.
We are the amoeba, the spermatozoon,
the ovum.
We are the tadpole.
We are seventy percent water!
We are the sea.
Let’s listen again to our own song.
Sea forms an amoeba
and it is beautiful.
Sea forms a tadpole
and it is beautiful.
Sea forms a human body
and it is beautiful.
In the pulsations of the brain,
sea forms thoughts, ideas
and feelings
and they are all beautiful!
And they are still Sea.
Press your hand to mine
and let us feel the ebb and flow.
The sea in our veins.
Together we are still seventy percent water!
Sea taking a form
to touch sea taking a form.
* * *
On dry land
sea walks.
Sea produces thoughts of difference
sea produces feelings of fear
and as the thoughts come
and go
as the feelings rise
and fall
sea forms throw rocks at sea forms.
Sea fires bullets at sea.
But how can sea kill sea?
Sea is neither killing sea nor dying.
Sea remains sea even if, among the amoeba,
the tadpole, the human body
or its pulsating brain,
sea rarely forms the thought
that recognizes sea as sea.
Come, let us go down
to the sea.
Let us listen to her song
to our song
and as the tide rises with our breath,
ask:
“O Sea!
O Mother so vast and deep,
present in all of your forms.
You are our bodies, you are our thoughts.
Our joy and suffering
to you are only shifting and momentary waves,
but when you form joy, we are joy.
When you form suffering, we are suffering.
How can you permit this storm of confusion,
these waves of hate and discrimination?”
In
and out.
Rise
and fall.
Back
and forth.
In
and out.
Rise
and fall.
Back
and forth.
“Dear son, dear daughter,
I feel your concern, your desire
as they are sea forms like any other.
When concern forms in you,
I have become concern.
When anxiety flows in the stream of your feelings,
I have become anxiety.
They form
and pass
They ebb
and flow.
Whatever wave rises in your heart
I have become.
“Fear, concern, desire, confusion:
I am all of these.
How could it be otherwise?
Why do you expect Sea
to be anything other
than your very nature?
“Son, daughter, please listen,
return to your song, to my song.
Return to our shared rhythm
to hear yourself in me
to hear me in yourself
and in all sea forms.
“When the tide of compassion
rises in your heart
– I am compassion.
When the wave of understanding
forms in the wet folds of your brain
– I am understanding.
“Awake! And I will be awake.
Let me walk gently with your feet
upon my own sea body.
Let me look with your eyes
to admire my own sea splendor.
“It is with your lips
that I can smile upon my own sea form.
It is with your heart
that I can love.”
