I Dreamt An Ocean.
{Photo via Tumblr}
“Beyond all things is the ocean.” ~ Seneca
Last night I dreamt of the ocean. Of embarking on a courageous journey of a lifetime.
On a large ship, in charge of the mast, full of hope and adventure, and utterly ill-suited for the task.
What is it about the sea? Its vastness either inspires awe or makes us feel insignificant. Or perhaps some combination. Its perfect rhythms offer comfort and also drive home how little of this world is within our grasp.
It can wash us clean of our earthly cares or, with too little effort to measure, simply wash us away.
“The sea has never been friendly to man. At most, it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.” ~ Joseph Conrad
For some, the ocean is a mirror of our hearts: wild, restless, unyielding, untamable, unknowable. In that reflection there is both inspiration and terror. To admit that our own hearts are unknowable, despite a lifetime of effort, is more than a little daunting. And also, we know we must try.
“The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
There is so much which is beyond us. We cannot read all the books in the store, as we cannot count the waves in the sea. We cannot love all the lovers to be loved, as we cannot walk all the beaches to be walked. We cannot solve the riddles in our own hearts, as we cannot count all the grains of sand.
“He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.” ~ George Herbert
We are in perpetual need of getting out of our own ways, of getting out of our own heads, of surrendering to that which we cannot know, of letting go of the rocks and the shore and letting the water take us where it will. This, too, is why the ocean calls to us.
There is not a thing in the world which does not feel the tug of the sea.
We live in a world which is mostly designed for things with gills. And yet, as a being without gills, I still yearned for this dream journey, despite my physiological shortcomings. As JFK once noted, “All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean.”
So continues the taunting paradox of the universe. Perhaps it’s the ocean’s great size which makes it all the more poignant that we are both profoundly lost and found in its presence. Even in its memory.
“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.”
~ E.E. Cummings
And still it seems that some are more built for adventure than others. Some who have no choice but to seek out the sea. And still more who cannot be content to simply walk its shores and gaze on its beauty, but must be out in it, as close to part of it as humanly possible.
And they cannot imagine any other life. They would not be whole without it.
“We rest here while we can, but we hear the ocean calling in our dreams.” ~ Michael Lille
The ocean is the great metaphor of unknowing, the great mystery, the Divine Feminine, the collective unconscious, the land of dreams. So a dream about the ocean is then a dream within a dream. The answer to a dream riddle that forever slips through your fingers at the borders of sleep.
“No matter what you say about it, there is always that which you can’t.” ~ Christopher Paolini
*****
#OceanHeart
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