The Oceanic Soul

A Sainted Sea

The language of the sea is music to me; I can’t understand all the words yet, but I’m beginning to detect some comforting chords and phrases.

Last month I had to make some adult choices. I traveled from home to design some career moves, confront some fears, stare longingly at others enjoying desired outcomes I can only build slowly over years, that kind of thing. Overwhelming waves of emotion accompanied this adventure: anxiety, frustration, loneliness, anger, hunger, real fear, real fearlessness. Some days, especially early on, the waves of feeling were upsetting enough to distract from genuine joys. I tried to muscle my way through them, and got very tired. So instead of trying to quell and beat down the waves of passionate energy that were trying to drag me off the beach, as I’ve done in the past, I decided to spend some time with them. Study them a bit, without scrambling.

I was lucky enough to be staying near the real Pacific Ocean. I went to look at it almost daily, especially at sunset. It’s my favorite ocean. I’ve spent time sailing it on sailboats and cargo ships, and it speaks to me like no other place on earth. From where I stood, at the very edge of it, down on the beach as the full moon rose, the surf breaks and booms. The water dragged at my ankles and eroded the sand from under my feet. It’s hard to make myself heard so close to them. The waves are loud. They’re bitingly cold. Standing here takes extreme effort, and hurts a little. I realized I walked here alone. But I don’t back away just yet.

Here at water’s edge, the wide Pacific feels like the only thing robust enough to help me understand the nature of my own soul, and the soul’s experience.

I used to imagine my inner landscape as an island surrounded by the sea, but now I’m beginning to wonder if a better image for my soul is the ocean itself. For I think my soul is more like the sea, where great ancient motions only become visible when coming close to shore. The booming froth that overwhelms up close becomes less fearsome with a little distance. These days I feel like the drowning rock at tides’ edge, and also like the wave that breaks over it. I feel like a tidepool filled with small jeweled creatures that barely begin to catch a purchase before a swell comes in and dashes them all away. I feel like broken glass, worn and tumbled to a soft jewel. I feel too powerful for my own mastery. I feel so strongly. I’m sick of the overwhelm and the draining, dashing repetition every time I step outside my comfort zone - and yet those are qualities in the ocean that I love, standing here. Waves only break against solid things, but tides dance with the sun and moon and wear away continents. I think sometimes I am afraid of being swept away by myself.

Can the ocean sweep itself away? Can the soul wear down its own substance?

“Ye cannot understand eternal reality by a definition. Time itself, and all acts and events that fill Time, are the definition, and it must be lived. The Lord said we were gods. How long could ye bear to look (without Time’s lens) on the greatness of your own soul and the eternal reality of her choice?” ~ C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

I know I have a powerful imagination - I dream of a life filled with stars and horizons and stories. I have a very powerful will that drives forward to make those dreams real. I have a powerful intellect, shaped by a loving education from others. Upon reflection, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by powerful passions. Very little about me is weak. Sitting there by my favorite ocean, I dared to wish I was weaker, just for a few seconds. Sometimes I dream of a world where I don’t pursue such overwhelming choices in my life…but I don’t think a future exists for me that doesn’t lie on the other side of those huge choices and huge passions. Not a future worth living, anyway.

“Men’s curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint -
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime’s death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.”

~T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages

That day, the beach overwhelmed me. That day I took a step back to clear my head. I dried my frozen feet and huffed up some stairs and streets to look out from a cliff-top. Up there, I could see the shining golden-gray expanse running out beyond the horizon. All the pounding swell below was barely a wrinkle on that smiling, fearless face.

Strong souls will feel strong swells as a part of any life we choose to live. I think I’m ready to stop running from them - it’s running from a part of my own soul, and that’s impossible. Better to simply learn to read the tides. Better to accept the sea as it is. I am the breaking swell and booming froth and drowning rock. I reflect the burning brightness of the Sun. I cast holy colors into the sky from my surface. What I really am becomes known when I meet something real and solid - when I meet that which I love and hunger for, and break and scatter upon it.

I want my soul to be like this. When I see the Pacific, I see sainthood.