“Touch me there, my love, and discover a truth worth finding” ~Tom Grasso
Sometimes he was like an island beach, and she was like an enormous ocean. He would hold on to his fears and she to hers. She’d be consumed by her identity of independence, of power, of depth and he his identity of pain, experience and a fascination with the destiny that left him here, as this island, longing for the sea. Both were so consumed by who they were that they failed to realize what happened when they touched at that place we call the “shoreline.” There, the ocean and the beach become one, and it is there that the greatest magic in the Universe turns water into a bit of sand and sand into a bit of water.
There is not much magic being the beach or the ocean. All it takes is an illusion and a desire to put that illusion above all others. Yes, we often put the illusion of who we are above the reality of who we are. We so identify with our waves, with our dunes, with our depth and with our coarseness that we neglect the wonderful experience occurring where the two meet. We are so dependent on the dream that we often tell ourselves that we love the dream and in the process destroy a dream far greater. We even suggest that there is nothing else as important to our existence as our identities and that we are done experiencing this existence beyond the boundaries we have created for ourselves.
There are times when I am so in love with being the beach or the ocean that I can not truly experience the shoreline. I will be so attached to the hot sand or the water’s depth that I will never fully know the experience of the place were the depths cool the sands, and the sands warm the water. If I hold fast to this notion, I will never see how much I love the ocean, or the beach, and I will never fully get to know that beauty that I AM.
We forget that many times the real strength, power and depth aren’t just found in the illusions of who we are, but in the ability to allow ourselves to enjoy the shoreline outside the box of who we think we are. It takes real courage and strength to give ourselves to another, to become the Lover, when we have created the idea of strength in only ourselves. It’s easy to pretend to have strength in separation when we find comfort there. It’s comforting to dream about truth in the separateness of I from you, of him from her, of me from us when that is what we have created. It takes no real courage to stand on your own two feet and stare the Universe in the eye when that is who you think you are. The real courage comes from stepping off the sand into the mud, of rising out of the depths into the that place that is neither water nor sand but a bit of both. We step out of our box into the wet sand and often feel fear we want to run from. It gives us great comfort to hide in our secure box and somehow suggest that it takes remarkable strength to be there.
We are free to experience this existence in the way we want. Free will, the beauty and the bane of the human experience, is the sole mechanism by which we convert our ideas and thoughts into a tangible reality. We can lie to ourselves that we have no shame there even as we put the proverbial fig leaf on our most private of areas and hide ourselves from one another. We are free to profess our strength and our power and our independence even as we display none of it. We cater to fear, some of which shows itself as unreasonable anger and some of which shows itself as unbending inconsideration. Other times that fear is demonstrated as pain, the sand suffering in not meeting the water, and the ocean suffering in not meeting the sand. So we attach ourselves to what we know…pain, fear, or some other false sense of security. We all seem to relive our chosen stories when we simply fear walking from the beach to test the waters where the waves kiss our sandy feet.
A chosen few seem to find great pleasure at the shoreline. They take a great risk in giving themselves to their Lover, but with that risk often comes great reward. There is Heaven in that place where Lovers meet, a certain paradise fraught with undertows, riptides and strong currents. Heaven can certainly become hell from time to time, but to those who brave their minds and their fears to walk in the surf ecstasy is the answer to the challenges of their humanity. Because they speak a language only their Lover can understand, those souls indulge their fears and find solace in one another. They learn to not only give to each other, but to take from each other. They can still be who they are as individuals, but they also find that the line where they meet one another is a place where they find a source of great strength both inside and outside of themselves. See, the shoreline doesn’t just exist where two souls meet, it is also the place inside ourselves were our fears meet our love, where our minds, hearts and souls all mesh into an undeniable passion for another person.
That passion is beautiful. That love is Divine. That expression of human fear creates such a wonderful manifestation of human potential in love. Take a chance if you will. Express it freely if you can. Give in to it if you are able. Even while we are fine in being alone and even as we love who we are, there is a certain wonderfulness in offering yourself completely to another being who is doing the same. Trust is the result. Faith is the byproduct. You are a gift, and it would be such a shame not to offer that gift to someone who would do the same for you and to someone who breathes you in with each breath, and who lives to be by your side.
Live this truth and find a foothold in the ocean tide where fear can’t last for long and faith abounds in the gift of love, companionship and of who you are.
Ω
Beautiful. Amazed that you have an idea…and, a few hours later, it is here. Love how you put yourself out there.