Waves

Notes from the wild…

I saw this post on Instagram by We The Urban this week and it spoke to me. I had an internal sigh of relief when I read it.

I went out one day this week and I watched the waves on the shore near where I live with a readiness to notice and learn what they could teach me. I watched their ebb and then their flow. The long draw back, dragging the sand and pebbles from the energy in the water. And then the flow, washing over the sand once again, making it silky, smooth, pouring out its offering. It was meditative to spend a few moments observing the movements of the sea. It made me think about how the progression of anything in life, be it a business, a new craft or skill development, a relationship. Everything will have ebbs and flows. More than that, I think if the sea was designed in this way, and the moon, the sun, the stars, plants & tree’s…surely there must be some wisdom there for us to glean? All of nature has seasons of retreat and growth. Times of hiddenness. The moon during the day, the sun at night. Times where soil covers the seed within to give it the space and time it requires to grow. I’m not sure that our culture has the same design. The idea of having times to retreat regularly within our year isn’t quite what success is associated with. We haven’t been taught that it’s a good thing for us to rest.

I’ve been reading Wintering by Katherine May and she poetically highlights that seasons of Wintering come upon us all at one time or another. Wintering is a book about the power of rest & retreat in difficult times. Wintering she says is ‘a fallow time in life when you’re cut off from the world.’ It’s not something we would necessarily choose for ourselves. Generally it is involuntary, lonely and deeply painful. Who would ever wish to sign up for this? But what if it’s not only inevitable but also vital for our growth. We want so much for our lives to be in the flow but what about the times of ebb, when the pebbles of our lives are dragged across the beach with the draw of the water and we feel powerless to do anything about it. I’m not sure about you but I generally do all that I can to avoid this. I grasp for anything that will take me away from that feeling of powerlessness. But I realised watching the waves this week that we wouldn’t experience the flow without the ebb. There is power in retreat and in rest in difficult times but perhaps we are so driven in our Western culture that it almost feels shameful to just be and to give ourselves the rest we so desperately need.

Wave (image courtesy of pixabay.com)

Here’s to recognising the times in our lives where we’re in ebb and here’s to not fighting it but leaning into it.

Here’s to holding onto the hope of the flow. That when it comes, it will wash over our lives, silky and smoothly with an inertia that cannot be manufactured.

Here’s to the waves in our lives and learning how to lean in.

As always, I hope this speaks gently to you on your way.

Until the next time.

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