The Sea

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a soft whisper, like water across sand -- hushed, yet as unstoppable as the tide.

A wave, you know, is the transfer of energy. We see them breaking upon the shore, and we think that they are nothing but the ocean's indecision: forward, retreat, forward, retreat. But that is because we think of waves as moving water, when in fact water is only the medium through which the waves travel.

Each wave is its own phenomenon. It is born of wind or tide and then moves ever forward from the moment of its birth. Its swell may appear indistinguishable, to us, from the swells of its infinite brethren, but it will crest and break in its own unique way as it arrives at the shallows, and it will reach to its own unique height upon the sand as it flows and slows to its final stretch.

Our lives, too, carry energy. And move forward. And seem, at times, to be mere erratic vibrations back and forth.

But we must not fall prey to the illusion that we are mere blind repetitions of a cycle. The world is the medium through which our lives move, just as the sea is a highway to the waves.

By reaching, and reaching, and reaching -- as far and as high as we can go -- we help to give the world its beauty. To remember this is to be at peace: to know that we will end in a cool sigh upon the sand, to the sound of birds and the caress of the sea breeze, with a very blue sky high above.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the sea through which I move.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee