Emerald isle retreat 2016

(“Both Sides Now…” with light rewording…)
“I’ve looked at waves from both sides now,  From give and take, and still somehow
It’s wave’s illusions that I recall, I really don’t know waves at all.”  Joni Mitchell

I remember my joy leaping into waves as a young(er) person (and that joy goes up to age 60!) From age 3 on, there were partial summers on the Jersey shore, I could spend hours jumping waves and riding them on whatever was at hand (at first, my Daddy’s shoulders). Then came the wave accident in 2004, and its near-death experience, broken bones, and serious back injuries. It left me permanently blind in one eye and with enduring neck and back injuries and turned my hair grey! And yet I long for the ocean! I LOVE the ocean!

I month after “the wave”

My experience of waves is two-fold, of great joy and great terror. But I can see that the terror is conditioned, the old stories of what could happen, based on one old experience. My primary relationship with waves is one of joy, the delight of being lifted up and flying, the delight of swimming in the underwater currents and feeling my unity with them…. Yet I acknowledge their potential destructive force.

In meditation I can see that the grief I’ve been facing is a kind of wave. Can I see directly into grief, and what it’s made of? Within ‘grief’, what is my direct experience in this moment? Where is the suffering, and what keeps me caught, unable to move forward?

I’ve lived a certain kind of life for 55 years, with one beloved husband, one home, raising our three children, work (as sculptor, as dharma teacher) all the ups and downs of daily life… with the inherent joys and sorrows. I’ve lived these years with a sense of strength and ability to care for myself, an independence. When these strengths go, there is fear, a sense of helplessness. That’s one wave. To move forward, past the old life, I have to ride it, not freeze with terror and old stories.

What does it mean to ride a wave of fear? It means to explore the fear itself without resistance; to open into fear itself. And what is the direct experience of fear? What is the direct experience of the wave, with all it’s immense power?

I’ve not clearly seen many past lives, but the ones i have seen have come as profound teachers. There was the lifetime on what seems to be a south pacific island. I was an older woman and often spent my time with the youngest people, teaching skills and sharing stories. That morning I sensed something wrong in the energy, unsure what. I stated alarm but an old woman was not listened to. But I followed my intuition to bring as many of the under 12-year-olds as possible up into the hills behind the coast where our village lay. From atop that high hill we watched the tidal wave roll in, drowning our village, our families down below, our homes and means of livelihood.

When I look at the memories of that event, there is outrage,(at the sea and at all those who pushed my concerns aside as “from the old woman.”) grief, feelings of helplessness. But there was also survival, a few other adults and older teenagers with us, some farmers and hunters of our people up in the hills, fishermen out beyond destruction of the wave. We were few but filled with courage and belief in our future, envisioning life rather than giving into the pain, rage and feelings of helplessness.

A decade later, we were again a thriving community, merged with several other neighboring communities, our homes built high enough to be above another such wave. I can remember the need to be present with grief and anger, and move beyond it, to imagine a new future.

My life has a tidal wave rolling in; our world seems to have several of them. “I’ve looked at waves from both sides now…” My present work is not to close my heart but to let it break open, and to come out beyond the waves; to imagine and co-create beautiful futures. Together, I deeply believe we can do this.

I’ve been imagining this life, the personal one and worldwide, a life of joy, love and peace; please co-create these with me.

Emerald Isle dawn, near where the wave swept me away

Emerald isle beach 2016