Life is like the ocean: a perfectly clothed drama of stillness and raging tides. We rest in its serene waters and bathe ourselves in the gentleness of the sea as it meets the shore, but hold fast to the feeling of restfulness which engulfs your body in a warm bath of calm. Because the ocean, too, may push you. It may pull you into its undertow and scrape your knees through patches of grainy sand. The beauty of the crest may leave you in awe, before its magnitude swallows you whole.
Photo by Jeremy Bishop
As I recall my moments spent by the ocean, I am overcome by how something so still can turn into something so dangerous — and somehow there is beauty in both. We appreciate the stillness of water because we know it can’t always be so. Yet, moments of raging riptides can be just as magnificent. The rushes of waves we see are the manifestation of a perfect “storm”; various factors which collide together creating a vicious lapse in time. When we view the ocean as part of a greater organization, these suspicious outbursts suddenly aren’t so strange.
In this way, the rushes and lulls of the water mimic the ebbs and flows of life. At times, we can be so overcome by emotions of stress and despair that it can feel that we are underwater. But, it is these same emotions that lead us towards overwhelming peace. After the storm, we regain the bliss we thought got lost in the undertow.
Photo by Anastasia Taioglou
But, when the wrath of the world throws me off my path and does catch me in the undertow, I draw nearer to my knowledge that the incoming storm is preparing me for huge triumphs of calm. As the sun wakes and rests, I am renewed with the notion each day is a new conquest. The sun, which rises above the waters, reminds me that time is fleeting and ever flowing. Every moment that exists is one we will never regain. So, when the earth tries to make a raging tempest of my feelings, I rest assured that struggle builds character, and character builds strength to resist the tides. Through my struggle and despair, I am born again.
Photo by Michael Flint
Truly I tell you that life is like a footprint in the sand that is washed away with time. As we walk through the beauty of the seashore, these moments are breathed in and out of existence as the waves touch our toes. The foamy waters are the perfect juxtaposition of serenity and calamity. I choose to reform my life from the moments of calamity which have struck me. If every moment of this Earth was blown away by the wind, as something that is loved and lost, the moments that have yet to exist are sacred entities of what is yet to be. As we begin to journey through life, seeking to see what is beyond the wave, I urge you to rest in the knowledge that beyond the storm is a great calm.
Photo by Marion Michele