Sunset
A few decades ago I stood on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and listened to Her through the waves and wind. “I feel like I should be here helping you,” I said aloud. You will know when to return. With that answer, I returned to the Piedmont of North Carolina.
April 20, 2010 I was leading a night dive in Curacao, 50 miles off the coast of Venezuela, and tasted an oily flavor in the air I was breathing. I stopped and surfaced and asked others if they had similar experiences with their tanks….none were noted. I continued leading the dive being very cautious and diving relatively shallow just to be safe.
Upon returning to the Atlanta airport two days later, I learned of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. The night of the dive was the night the rig exploded and sank…and the nightmare of the largest oil spill in US history began. Sitting in the airport I remembered the sea’s answer…You will know when to return.
And so, for the next year I spent a week of nearly every month back at the Alabama coast documenting and writing about the disaster. I traveled back and forth from Asheville, where I lived at the time. And finally, the work led me to live along the coast.
Within a couple weeks of moving here I found sea turtle volunteer opportunities and a bit later, manatee volunteer training and volunteering. Both became very important in my life. But after six years here, and two children’s books and two photography-inspirational books, it felt like my work here was coming to a pause….a long pause….a very long pause and I knew it was time to open to the next chapter.
The sunset….oh, yes. The sunset.
I walked along the beach a couple nights ago and found myself at the water’s edge asking Her permission to wrap up the work here and move back to the mountains. Well done, daughter. Return to the mountains to be nurtured in the lush green and fresh running waters, I felt more than heard.
Nearing the end of the walk I was on the boardwalk leaving the beach when the western horizon drew my attention. Perhaps a pause before leaving wouldn’t hurt.
Little-by-little the most amazing sunset I have ever seen began to illuminate the sky. My heart opened with deep gratitude. I have witnessed such sadness here….oil covering animals and beaches–the smell burning my eyes and throat years ago and recently a critically endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle and a huge loggerhead sea turtle washed ashore dead on my last two sea turtle patrols. But the sky reminded me of the gift of beauty that has also been experienced during my six years here.
It seemed to be a thank-you…a gift that will remain burned into my memory.
As I write this my dog is running in his sleep as he lays beside me on the bed. He’s off adventuring in his dreams. I welcome the next adventure as I don my hiking boots and walk into the welcoming arms of the oldest mountains on the planet…camera in hand, note pad ready and heart open.
I was watching the movie, Hostiles, and heard myself saying out-loud tearfully, “I have to return. I have to go back!” A Native American elder was returning to his home as a dying wish after incarceration by the US government.
Since I was a child the Appalachian Mountains have called me. When my parents asked my brother and me where we wanted to go on vacation I’d prompt my brother to say…the MOUNTAINS! He didn’t….but I tried. Anything to get back there…to spend time in those sacred and most-ancient mountains on the planet. I remember feeling so at home there and so much myself…so connected to the land and my own bones. Then the leaving….was heart-rending.
I lived there for six years and loved it but felt called to the shores of my birth where I’ve spent six years healing and connecting with energies needed to finish the process of preparing me for the next step in the journey.
Any time an impending move is explored, there are questions and ponderings. Before I put my energy 100% behind something as big as this, I want to be sure. So last night before bed I asked to be given a sign pointing me to where I feel called.
After not sleeping much I checked email during the night and found an email from a dear friend referring to my move to the Asheville area. And then tonight….the movie and the message directly from my soul, “I have to return! I have to go back!”
I don’t know how life works…how we feel ancestral connections so strongly and why our bones vibrate with some places so strongly. I can only surrender to the dance of my heart’s rhythm and the song of my soul as it guides me gently back, back, back to those ancient mountains.
Home…ultimately it is the Self, not an outward geographic location. And yet there are places that urge us inward and support and nurture that journey of the Pilgrim…the Fool’s travels on the Tree of Life…the Spiritual Warrior’s Empty-Handed Leap into the Void.
I. AM. READY.
Last night I met a six year old boy who created a camera out of driftwood. He instructed me to push a button on it and anything I photographed would come to life. It took him only a few moments to invent this magical tool.
So many times society takes creative souls through a deadening process. Trying to keep someone in a small realm of acceptable norms kills the creative spirit within us….and makes us think we are not okay because we are different. And let’s face it, we’re all unique and ‘different’ at our core.
I’m sure many who read this understand what it’s like to think differently or express yourself differently. I have met a great number of people who have lived their entire lives in emotional pain because they are ‘different.’ Their creative genius can be lost…and that’s a loss for all of us.
He inspired me to give myself permission to create with wild abandon and imagine my life in ways I’ve dared not even dream. I’ve spent today reflecting on freedom and wholeness and self-permission.
It seems the entire world has come together to help a group of Thai boys and their coach who are trapped in a flooded cave. Prayers without regard for religion, assistance without regard for invisible country borders…a true coming together without being thwarted by our differences.
The metaphor of the cave has touched me deeply. Partly because I am a cave diver and partly because I have spent decades diving deep within myself to find clear water and space from which I can love more fully and more unconditionally.
A video from the beginning of yesterday’s rescues showed the technically difficult environment. The rescuers are climbing, diving, wading, swimming…whatever it takes to accomplish their mission.
And today, another four were rescued…another wave of love that surely must have touched even those not consciously aware of the source. What courage it takes to return through that difficult maze of dangerous passages knowing how exhausting and challenging physically and mentally it would be. But the reward…those precious children and their coach being brought into light once again…was worth it.
Most of us would never be able to perform such a rescue in the depths of the earth with rushing water and low oxygen levels and mud and steep climbs. But each of us are given the opportunity to learn to love without condition, to love without judgement….or prejudice….or religious bias…but the catch is this: we must be willing to explore our inner ‘cave’ or inner realm where all our hurts and pains are found, where we store the teachings taught to us regarding people different from us. Many people turn back when they hit inner blocks to love. The desire to feel ‘safe’ is many times stronger than the desire to clear away everything that keeps our true self from shining through.
So how does one make it through the scary parts of the journey?
I suspect that if any kids were able to survive nine days with little food or hope and remain calm enough to exit a flooded cave, it is these children. First, they had a coach with them–someone whose job it was to help them function as a team. And then, meditation is part of their upbringing and spiritual practice. Simply put….learning to calm the mind is a foundation they learn at an early age. I suspect their coach worked with them to practice their meditation skills as they awaited their fate. And in cave diving the most important ability, in my view, is knowing how to remain calm in stressful situations. More than anything, that skill will lead these children and their coach to safety.
