Wish Upon A Wave
One summer I gazed up at the night sky so much that stars were impressed on the backdrop of my eyelids. Twinkling, sparkling, glimmering specks of light created context for the vastness of dark matter and infinite time. It was a nightly ritual. After the sun sank into the sea, I’d lay on the bow nets and feel the breeze soften under the cloak of dusk. Like the shadow of a sundial, the boat gently swung at anchor. The universe clocked around me.
Suspended between a broad sky and a sweeping sea, the crescent-shaped bay cradled me in her majestic embrace. Looming ridges towered overhead, veiling the horizon with a wall of lush land. Shooting stars would arch across the sky and disappear behind the curtains of eras bygone and beyond.
Picking a pocket of the sky, I’d expand my focus and let the kaleidoscope of my private little planetarium take me for a ride. Sometimes my mind would engage and strategize how to see more shooting stars, as if there was rhyme and reason to it. But, of course, this only distracted from the spectacle. Shooting stars are like little surprises. And surprises must be allowed to have an air of spontaneity. So, I learned to relax and let myself be surprised.
One night, relaxed into the romance of my reality, I unwound. The spiraling forces above coaxed me into their hypnotizing vortexes. My mind drifted. My body followed. At anchor, at ease, I barely needed to breathe. My chest rose and receded, ebbing and flowing in tandem with the swelling sea. My breath became the breeze and my chest expanded to encompass what felt like eternity.
Momentarily, my mind tried to engage, because that’s what it does. It tries to comprehend, to understand, to calculate and analyze the sensations so it can convert them into practical data for survival. But the sky-scape was too big, too immense, too far beyond the reaches of the mental matrix. The only thing thinking contributed to my experience was anxiety— cerebral signals commanding the heart to beat faster, for fear of this space unknown.
So I chose another route, another reality. I reined back on the mental escapades and returned to that suspend space of surrender. “Just observe,” I told myself.
With its last attempt at authority, my mind wished upon a star. And with that wish, I was catapulted into the cosmos. Constructs evaporated. Barriers dissolved. Belief systems obliterated. And, of course, this is when it all clicked. All the senses finally made sense.
That wish I cast into the sky swirled and explored and, eventually, found its orbit. There, it sank into the sweetness of freedom without form for a while. It expanded and contracted and generated enough energy to begin to shine. It magnified and amplified and became a light of its own. A star was born. And by the very nature of its own unique brilliance, it offered an invitation to other stars. Wanna play? A constellation was co-created.
However, after a while the star craved the feeling of freedom again. So it willed and wiggled itself into a free-fall through the galaxy. It allowed itself to ride upon celestial currents and melt into the Milky Way. Until, swooned by the alluring edges of a familiar existence, it followed the strong pull of an undeniable gravity. The gravity was so strong, it almost created resistance. But, instead, it created friction. And that friction gave rise to heat, to action, to alchemization.
Burned into being through the belt of our atmosphere, that star embodied its original intention. It returned to a wish with the inspiration of eternity and effervescence of expansion. Which, on this planet, took the form of a cloud. As a cloud, it was allowed to reorient itself with the ways of earth, the cycles and seasons and phases of elemental existence. Until, one day, prompted again by a force beyond itself, it transformed into a fluid state of being. And, once again, as soon as it let go from the comfort of the cloud, it free fell. It remembered freedom. But this time, it related freedom with letting go. And letting go was tied to trust.
Just as it began to accept its new reality in fluid, free-fall form, it met its match. It fell right onto the surface of the softest, silkiest, sea of serenity. And all of a sudden the comfort of the cloud and the freedom of free-fall were but mere points of perspective.
Cohesion, connection, conductivity now permeated every molecule, atom, cell. Collective understanding expanded into the hugeness of the horizon and unfathomable aquatic depths. Fueled by the same force that drove that drop of rain into its new salty abyss, a ripple was created. A wave was made. And that wave began its journey from the epicenter of the sea to its very own, divinely timed discovery.
The wave rolled. It rolled and rolled and rallied and recollected. During its open ocean voyage, it collected parts of itself that had been dispersed in the process of experiencing. Dolphins reminded it how to play. Sharks taught of sensitivity as a strength. Whales told tales of clairsentient communication and celebration and community. As the wave collected itself, it began to take shape. It rose a bit higher from the surface of the water and, every now and again, tried a white cap on for size.
In the midst of manifestation, that familiar pull of magnetism became apparent once again. So the wave rolled on, trusting, because it had yet to be led astray.
The more it rolled, the more it was pulled. Pressure from weather systems contributed fair winds, while cyclic currents created following seas. The sun radiated, reminding it to shine. So it glimmered and gyrated as if a million diamonds danced upon its spine. It grew and grew and started to make itself known. Swell reports and radars announced its arrival. Yet it knew not what or where or to whom it was arriving to…
Meanwhile, my heart races. My breathing is riddled with sighs. My mind tries to calculate and comprehend the incoming swell. I read numbers and cross reference with charts and try to puzzle piece my approaching reality. But something deep inside me says, “just observe.”
So I employ my mind to do its job. I read data and take measures and make moves to stay safe. I relocate the boat into deeper waters and securely set the anchor and assess my surroundings in case the wind shifts direction.
On the eve of the incoming swell, the entire bay glasses over like an oil slick. Rising on the eastern palm-studded ridge, the full moon rises with a fiery volition, piercing illusion like an all-seeing eye. The wind dies. The sky clears. Silence fills the ancient volcanic bowl with an eerily familiar feeling.
I awake the next morning to a pleasantly calm sea state— the slow build. Elemental foreplay. Slowly, but steadily, the waves begin to roll in. Gently, the wind picks up. Clouds cast deceiving shadows over shifting tidelines. The lineup is already swollen with amp and hype. So I sit back. I observe. I observe my heart as it swells. I observe my breath as it heaves. I observe my nerves as they fire in fight-or-flight response to the mounting waves just off the beam of the boat. And as I’m pushed over the edge of comfort into the vulnerable unknown, something inside me says, “just receive.”
My mind wants to run and my body wants to build walls of protection. We’ve trained ourselves well to survive exposure. But, this time, I know I’m safe. Because something bigger than me that seems to also reside inside of me knows. So I sit, trusting, because that knowing has yet to lead me astray.
Wave by wave, I’m hit with realizations. It’s a peeling reveal of my life, a scroll that wells up from the depths of my deepest desires and unfurls for me to read. It’s all there— written on the walls of overhead barrels. Every intention I wrote, every prayer I ever whispered beneath my breath, every mantra I recited, every wish upon a star, one by one I recognize them. They’re all here. I’m living them. My reality is the creation of my intentions, pulsing life force into me from the very sources that comprise the fabric of my own body. It’s almost too much to take in. It’s overwhelming and uncomfortable and awkward and beautiful all at the same time. It challenges who I think I am and calls forth new parts of me to be embodied. It breaks down my belief systems and requires a re-writing of my story. So here I am. And here’s my story.
