My 63rd Birthday: To the Sea

MY 63rd Birthday: To the Sea

              In the morning, the fog held heavy and damp over the rocky shore.  Its cool moisture rising from the swelling and swirling sea crashing on the rock inlaid beach below.  She and I, rising with the morning light emerged from the warm and airy cabin above, following the dark muddy path through the stands of wet pines and the silently green carpeted forest of ferns.  Through the rock gateway, over the tidal steam, where we could see the myriads of sea creatures lying prostrate as the morning tide gently receded.  The world gray and cold, seemed to hold some mystery, some touch of midnight beauty, some natural feeling of innate becoming.  Beyond, my wife and I, holding hands counting the sweet sea creatures in the small tidal pools. We could hear the big breakers crashing and throw themselves against the long pacific shore, and I  thought, “Should this be the day?”
         In the ancient sea fog of a damp pacific mist, my wife and I walked down the rocky shore until we came to a large patch of pepper colored sand.  All around lay strewn broken sea shells, dark rounded rock and long stalks of deep water kelp. Looking like strange unearthly sea creatures- serpents lying dead on the waters edge.  All the while the waves crashed and thundered and even once a fog horn bellowed it’s deep and throaty moan. And I, as I had promised, walked to the base of the rising hill before the beach and began to carry back the dry wood I had prepared the day before.
         Before long, shaking off the morning chill, we had a small fire going and my wife in her beauty and silent grace had hot tea in our hands and our bellies full of a breakfast of boiled eggs, fruit and honey oats.  While the morning light grew the fog began to rise, over the swells we could see the sea birds dipping and screaming as the long motions of the sea made easy the morning thoughts; their movements becoming the touch and flow of  time, the breathing of heaven, emerging from an infinite void of synergetic rising and falling- carrying a sweet sorrow filled message from far off shoals. My wife said she thought she heard the whispering ghostly song of ancient Irish Avalon.
         By mid morning the sun had risen low in the eastern sky burning the last far off sea fog away.  Behind us, up the steep hills the forest lay dark, damp, still and cold-nothing moved but the wind and the water.  We, still in the morning shadows let the fire burn down. When we were done sitting we went to the waters edge.  Walking to the south towards the solid oceans rocks we came to a large patch of mostly sand.  My wife and I, there in the mid morning air, as the sun began to hit our backs, listening to the birds and the waves watching the tide go out. Cleared a large enough area of sand for two bodies to lie end to end twice over.  With the drift wood, shells, small round stones and rotting brown kelp, we made a large circle surrounding a space of relatively clean and dry sand.  In the middle of the circle once again we build a small drift wood fire. The smell of sweet smoke drifted far down the lonely beach.
         As we had promised, talked about, and practiced- the need, the desire, and ritual. My wife and I each to the one side of the dying fire lay spread out, me to the north, she to south.  We calmed our selves said a pray of thanks and love then sat thinking of why we had each come.  Lying back, staring up at the partly cloudy sky listening to the crash of the oceans wave, the sounds of sea birds and chill of the damp sand beneath my back, I let my mind drift to that dark and silent inner place.  And I imagined lying in hell with all the fear, greed and lust of some many years, so many peoples, so much ignorance and pain. I saw the mass of man and the beauty of being with the One, the light of Self, until drawing in close, I neither heard nor felt that north west beach.
         I imagined from far below my outer soul lying there on the hard sand, thinking of those hidden thoughts of a seeping, a leaking, a releasing of self will.  Into the earth my deep memories flowed.  My Self Will- there all the hate I had ever known, all the  times I lost my soul, the dark nights of drinks, drugs, and the sounds of my parents fighting, whispers of loss as I told her I had been with another, the lying to get ahead, confusion, the sense of loss, the joy of giving pain.  I even saw the faces of those I could have helped, could have felt compassion for instead of spite.  I thought of those I had scorned whom I perpetually hated and talk about as though I knew their life, their being. I wept becuase I should have always been to all the strangers as a brother and sister son.  I saw the tears streaming down that poor kids face after I had pushed him in the spring muddle puddle when I was ten, becuase he was fat and nobody liked him; just to show that I could be like them, that I could be funny at others peoples expense.  And all the times I had said and acted as though I was great, even though really I didn’t dare try and see or fill my own soul.  And I left it there as I knew she was doing right across from me.
         And the Fear- of love, of never being loved, of with drawing, of seeking approval.  The fear of letting go, of change, of loss.  The fear that others would know and that I would have to show my shame, that I would have to wear it on my sleeve.  The fear of not willing or being able to turn around and face my fears.  Of the feelings of rejection, of being an outsider, of not being good enough, strong enough, smart enough.  The fear of letting my people down, of not performing, of failure.  The fear of hearing that voice that says you not good enough.  The fear of losing my identity, that ideal self that causes so much pain and confusion when we can’t live up to it’s abhorrently high expectations.  The fear of showing her, my beautiful and loving wife, my body, my aging male body.  The fear that I should have been this, instead of that, that I could have loved more, that I could have said more.  The fear when my parents died, when my grand mother took her last breath.  The fear when I look down the dark street and feet the rising tide of hell.  The fear when I’m alone and the walls seem to shake as though the world, life, reality in all its being, is caught in mute wasting. The fear that I should forever be alone, even when love is near.
         Pride- Of not being able to see my Self Will and Fear, of holding on when I should have let go.  The pride- when I could not admit my faults, when I got drunk and I made my life continent on being right, on glorifying my inflated sense of weak human ego, that not the source of a good life, a peaceful life.  The pride-of not being able to let others in, for seeing myself as the only one suffering, for believing, becuase I suffered too, it made me strong and hard, when it really made me weak.  The Pride that causes me to hate my children becuase they are gone and I am left alone. The pride that rubs off and makes my look as though I believed I was better, am better, more equipped, smarter, faster, more successful, when I am like you and you are really like me.  Pride when I was hurting and needed Gods love and compassion; but I didn’t have the strength to only ask and you shall receive. Pride for not accepting failure, for beating myself up when all I had done was my very best.  Pride when there should be love.  Pride when I lie alone and think of only my aging life.
         I came up having further grown, the smell of wood smoke, salt and the sea.  The sounds of day birds and the waves, the cool touch of the sand, the feel of one lone rock beneath my back.  The feeling of knowing she was there, just feet away.  The sound of the sea breeze in the my ear, the warm touch of the late afternoon shadowed sunshine.  I sat up and look along the beach, and she was there looking at me, looking at each other, coming too from a dream.  We rose together each looking where we had lain.  There where the impressions of our bodies should have been lay two exactly proportionate skeletons. The flesh still holding fast to the bone each in there own way seething of human emotion, of a physical metaphoric victory over death, over fear, over blind hate, of perpetual human ignorance, over two more lifetimes of perceived loss and slight.
         We moved away from the circle letting the skeletons lie where we had lain.  Released, we moved back under the shelter of a large rock not far away.  Once again we built a fire, like I had promised, having a dinner of boiled potatoes, sandwiches, and cold water.  Together, against the shelter of the rocks we watched the evening tide come in.  The waves crashing, the birds diving and swooping and sounds of the God rumbling in the salty air.  Huddled together under a warm blanket holding each other tight, we watched as the circle we cleared away, the fire we had built and the place we had lain was washed over and given to the sea; the skeletons of our pasts being swept away like leaves in the autumn wind.  And when the circle was gone, the fire doused and the skeletons returned the to the sea, we arose, packed our things and walked up the beached. Across the tidal stream, through the stone gateway, up the muddy path, through the pines and ferns, to the cabin, to lie awake after love talking and thinking of the day.