Water Planet
I Stopped Trying to Save the World Today
Solstice. Sunrise. Sunset. Moon. Stars. Inky blackness in a space vacuum pierced by pinpoints of light.
Cosmic glue. Love. Source. Spirit. Animation of matter through particles of light.
Heart and mind open, light sparkles through eyes and aura.
Light, mist of Love manifested in physical. Light and love, same expression of the Mystery, the Unnamable.
Defining It lessens It and contorts It into our image.
Light came from Dreamland with me this day–a flower opening, a single ray of light from the sun…smile of a friend after a belly laugh slurped from the same straw.
Today I stopped trying to save the world. Now there is only laughter and beauty. Outrageous laughter. Delicious beauty.
Stopped pushing, began allowing. Profound peace is at home within me. And now….everything is possible.
Tarpon Buzz and Turtle Love
The sun set over the mountains far from our entry point. Golden sky glowed with lingering day as night descended.
Twilight found me slipping beneath the surface….again. Into the turquoise water that appeared gray as light faded until my bright light illuminated it.
Small silver flashes zoomed past as I slowly kicked into the deep. Nighttime on the reef…a time of rest for some and action for others.
Not long into the dive a large hawksbill sea turtle was spotted foraging for food. We directed our lights away from it so it wouldn’t be blinded but another diver started shining his light directly on the turtle and began chasing it. Of course this lead to me kicking into high gear–quite literally–out of my relaxed blissful, happy place and I begin flashing his face. He didn’t stop until I intercepted and was about to grab his arm and direct the light away from the turtle. I felt molten lava stir within as this endangered species was harassed by a careless diver.
Once the turtle was safely moving on without the spotlight, my dive buddy and I moved away from the group and found in front of us another hawksbill, a bit smaller, and so we hid our lights so as not to reveal her presence. We floated in the dark, gray ocean, barely able to see the outline of the turtle as we stayed between it and the other diver who was still searching for the original turtle. With loving hearts we fiercely protected our sea turtle friend.
After turning around and going into the shallower sand flat, tarpon began hunting with our lights. We came into contact with several other divers who were photographing and videoing the frenzy of these large, silver fish indulging in some easy dinners. We broke away from the crowd and swam on but had gotten just past the mosh pit of people when I felt a rush by my right side as a huge tarpon buzzed past me, using my bright cave light as a feeding beam.
The rush of such an animal, over five feet in length with shiny, silver plate-like scales and large eyes, zooming past me barely missing my side was wild. I knew he was going to come back yet each time he buzzed me I squealed into my regulator. We played a game of hunt the fish with Simone’s light. I loved every minute of it. It’s quite possible my face hurt from smiling so much while trying to hold the regulator in my mouth.
I sit propped up in bed now, yet still underwater moving and flowing with gentle surge. Nearly four hours were spent beneath the surface, communing with the Ocean and many creatures that live within Her. It was a dive of strong emotions….feeling protective, feeling ecstatically playful and mostly feeling immense love for all life. Oh…and grateful. Very grateful.
A Little More Kindness
Journal entry from 8am this morning:
My hands are still damp, I’m still in my wetsuit, but I wanted to write while the emotions are still fresh.
I had just turned my solo morning meditation dive when in front of me glided a large spotted eagle ray. Her long, thin tail trailing behind–a thin, black line against the blue sea. Her face beautiful in its beak-like design, eyes watching me as I watched her.
She arched across my right side leaving the sand flats where she had fed and headed down the top of the reef. I stopped and witnessed her graceful beauty–the slow, steady beat of her wings underwater–and felt my heart open as it does when beauty such as this touches me softly with its unexplainable magic.
So close to this magnificent creature was I, our eyes connected and thus did our innermost being.
She swam on and I did, too, parting with joy and appreciation. As I slowly kicked back, away from the ray, I felt a renewed commitment to cultivate kindness and gentleness for all creatures and especially those who are innocent of the abuses humans perpetuate apon their homes.
Golden Crown of French Grunts
I hung motionless in the turquoise water, silently witnessing a living, golden crown adorning a beautiful growth of elk horn coral in the white sand bottom. That’s how the Sea is….alive, moving, breathing as one with all Her creatures. The French grunts with their golden stripes schooled and moved as one being, swaying with the surge of the water column. I too moved only as the water moved me, hanging so peaceful in saltwater reverie.
That’s why I dive…Oneness. It’s never about how far I go or how long I stay underwater but only about the experience of being part of the underwater world, a witness to the immense capacity for life found in the Ocean.
I awoke to the sweet sounds of a warbler perched in the palm tree outside my window. In the dark, pre-dawn quietness–while most of the place is still sleeping–trills and warbles pierced the silence and brought me from the dreamtime. In that land between sleep and waking, the palm leaves rustled their staccato swishing and began the song of the dawn.
A faint glow called to the artist in me so I unpacked my camera, grabbed my tripod and headed to the water. As I stepped outside it felt like I was un-peeling another layer of civilization and properness and expectations from myself and entering into the elemental world of Bonaire that my soul answers to with opening…unfolding…deep breaths….unbounded gratitude.
Standing in soft, cool sand, sound again spoke to me in the tinkling of coral bits in the gentle surf, the wind gently whistling and tossing my hair, water swooshing and moving itself up to my feet. Music of the dawn, calling me to connect with elemental spirits of air, water, fire and earth. There is no other place that calls so strongly to my soul.
Later….a frog fish, master of camouflage presented himself to me. A large peacock flounder, another being perfectly capable of rending herself hidden on the reef, lay quietly waiting. A tiny, precious little moray eel, yellow and black and no longer than a few inches, caused rapturous joy to erupt from within. This life….this immense Ocean of life…is the lifeblood of Earth and I, a daughter of the sea, felt my heart singing hymns of worship.
Later still….I knelt at the clear, warm water’s edge seeking bits of sea glass. But really, truly I simply wanted to connect with the silence within myself as the saltwater caressed me, nurtured me and reminded me of fins and scales, and seaweed hair that are features that define me…mermaid….daughter of Poseidon…lover of the Sea.
Around my flowing, seaweed hair swims a crown of fish as I swim beside a grandmother sea turtle. There is no separation. There is only Oneness.