Getting still in the sounds of the sea

The pebbles clatter and crash together as I stride across the beach. The vast expanse of sea is all I can see, from left to right and back again.

The wind whooshes against me, almost blowing me over as I stand my pebbly ground. All I can hear is the roar of the wind, the rolling tide, and the call of the gulls, maybe alerting their friends to the presence of the human, and the possibility of food.

I want to savour this moment, I sit down, feeling rocks shift beneath me, groaning their objection to my weight.

I sit, as still as a statue, and hold my gaze on the waves kissing the shore. In…. out….. in ….. out….. it never stops, not even for a moment. The sea doesn’t care about the small things we fret about in our human lives. It keeps moving in and from the shore. The world goes on, the sun rises and sets, the tides keep moving…. But I can pause this moment and be right here, right now…. Time can carry on without me. Right now is all I need.

I close my eyes, and feel my breath settle in solidarity with the sea. The sun warms my face, I am more aware of it now that my eyes are closed. As I sit and breathe, the light shine through my eye lids, changing the darkness to a glowing blood red. I am entirely in my body, and entirely in the world of the sea. The gulls, the wind, the waves are all in my head now, or maybe I am in them. They are me. I am them. We are all one. We are all one.

I open my eyes and blink fiercely as my eyes adjust to the light,

Reluctantly, I return to the human world, as the sea whispers to me ‘come back again soon’.