Friday, December 23, 2016

Steve Taylor - The wave



The ocean sighed with pleasure
as the wind caressed and stroked her
and soon the wave was born.

The wave came from the ocean
and was always a part of the ocean.
But shortly after he was created
the wave watched himself, as he began to rise and roll,
saw his own smooth and graceful motion,
the beautiful bubbling foam which sprayed around him
and fell in love with himself.

He started to believe that he was his own master
that it was his own strength that was propelling him
that he was directing his own flow
and could change direction if he wanted.

The wave forgot the ocean, and saw himself as separate –
a self-sufficient, sealess wave
who felt proud of his power, exhilarated by his autonomy
as he rolled faster and rose higher.

But then he looked around, and saw the other waves
who had already peaked and crashed
and were beginning to dip and to disperse
and the others who were already dissolving, disappearing.
And he felt afraid, realising that his form was temporary
that his speed and power would ebb away
and soon he would dissolve and disappear as well.

And he felt alone, as he sensed the empty space around him,
the distance between him and the other waves.
And he felt threatened by the ocean’s vastness,
now that he seemed to be separate from it.

The wave resisted and rebelled –
he tried to build up more momentum, to collect more water,
to roll more smoothly, to foam more spectacularly
to make himself so powerful that he would never dissolve away
to make his form so perfect that he could escape decay.

But soon the wave realised he had no choice
that he had less control than he thought, less strength than he thought
that he couldn’t interfere with the forces that had shaped him
so he stopped grasping and pushing
and felt the relief of letting go
and the freedom of no longer trying.

And so after the majestic foaming rush, the glorious crescendo of his breaking
he gave himself up to his ebbing, fading flow
to the ease of his descent
and he was filled with the joy of acceptance.

He allowed his boundaries to soften
and felt his connection to every other wave
and his oneness with the whole of the sea.
He felt the vast wholeness of the sea
within his own being
then as his own being.

And then the wave dipped, slowed down and began to dissipate.
Quietly and serenely, without fear or resistance
he gave himself to the tide, and became the sea again

knowing that he had never been anything else.


 

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