When you stand on a sandbank in the ocean, on certain tides, the waves wash in from the breakers and then sometimes hit the banks in such a way that they create a wave that returns back and smashes up into the wave coming into shore. It’s a huge amount of fun to get right in the impact zone and have a wave smash you from either side and with Arran and Marley, we have so many games we play right in this sweet spot.
The thing about being in the ocean is, you can get out. When life is like this, and we’re stuck in a two-directional impact zone, it can feel like we are drowning.
This is just the feeling I have when I return home from a big trip. There’s the thrill of being away, of altered schedules and little routine, new dining experiences, people I met or old friends I melded with. Brilliant students now on their meditation path. And just before we leave I become desperate to get home and see the dogs, settle back into my established, well-worn routine, and I am aching to cook healthy food and eat out of my beautiful ceramics, be by the ocean with Marley barefoot and to see my parents for a laugh and share a meal.
Of course, I get home to a mass of washing and unpacking. I always go into a slight frenzy of exhausted the-whole-house-needs-tidyingor-rearranging and I need to plant new vegetables and all kinds of activity in the garden. My body is jet lagged and my meditations are ratty and aggravating instead of peaceful. And after the newness of being home wears off, and the dogs start to drive me crazy with their barking and all my emails have piled up and the receipts from the trip beg to be entered, and I am now tired of cooking, I start to yearn for the trip we were only just on, for the freedom and discovery we had whilst away.
It’s crazy yet it’s what happens every single time…one wave heading in, one wave heading out, stuck in a micro collision. Whether it’s between friendships, relationships, projects, careers, birth, and death, it’s all the same experience. It’s the struggle that bothers us, the expectation that we shouldn’t feel like this.
And the only thing for us to do in these moments is to get present. Because in the centre of those two waves colliding are these incredible moments where the light hits us in shards, where the salt sprays our faces gently, and where our bodies become heavy and our feet grounded as we wait for the thrill of the impact. Time slows, we are reminded of the forces of nature and we get really aligned with it.
And within all of this, we see the intense beauty of it. This is what presence is; seeing everything just as it is in every moment. Seeing the yearning, the pining, the unrealistic wants and desires, and the projections, and smiling, and just being with it all for what it is, without the struggle.
Sent with love,
Jac x