The primary thing I like about the practice of writing as a sacred art is you are not confined to any one subject. There is a freedom to writing for the sake of writing. Recently I was ill and could not go to the beach, so I took the opportunity to write about it:
I am on the beach in public parking and I close the car door a bit too hard in my haste to get out. I walk to the old brown rugged wood picnic tables and take a deep breath. I look to my right and take in the full beauty that is the ocean. I stand completely still, smelling the salt air, closing my eyes and listening to the roar of the ocean. It sooths my soul, I know I am home. I open my eyes, take a deep breath and sit at the picnic tables.
I stare at the ocean and become one with all there is. The blue-green water enters my blood stream and my heart beats in rhythm to the crashing waves. I become a fish. I am a small fish caught up in this cool-blue menagerie of life. I surrender to the vast expanse of everything and nothing, allowing it to take me where it wants me to go. I occasionally come up and look at the land-locked souls and wonder if they are content just sitting or walking on the beach. Then a wave overtakes me and they don’t exist anymore.
I am back in my ocean I can breathe again. I feel safe in this large soothing womb; there is freedom; sound is muffled but beauty is magnified. I am still in quite shallow waters but I venture further down to spy seaweed as they dance to the muffled ocean music. The deep green skinny weeds sway in time to the current as if touched by an ocean breeze.
I close my eyes and try to think of a little song to go with the music but words fail me; I open my eyes and continue to watch the dance of the seaweed. I swim and I swim, I swim forever. I am lost in time, space, and nothingness. One lives forever in the ocean. You are always a part of it and it is always a part of you. The ocean is the most perfect place imaginable.
I slowly come to myself and I am sitting at the picnic tables looking out upon the ocean and already missing my little fish dream. I look down and begin to envy the sand for its nearness to the ocean. I touch the tan, glassy sand and it feels like life slipping through my fingers. I am at peace and I have renewed energy to face my life. What do I do now? I continue to write. I continue to have faith. I continue to live with integrity.
(c) 2009 by C. J. Stegall-Evans
Designed by Tim Sainburg from Brambling Design
Imagination and writing can take you anywhere. You seem to have found that happy place that’s inside of each of us and shared it with the world.
I know when I am writing, sometimes it like I actually leave this reality and exist only in the place in my mind. The characters and storyline become alive….I think you know exactly what I mean.
Hi Terry,
I know exactly what you mean. There are few things in this life I find more satisfying than reading and writing. I mentally pinch myself almost every day because I am fulfilling my life’s dream.
peace&blessings,
~cj~