The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls

When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.--Rainer Maria Rilke

I took a trip out to the beach today, and I am so glad that I did. What a wonderful, relaxing day I had...the best in a good long while.  I'd forgotten how much I loved it. This is a three day weekend for me, so I am taking full advantage of it. Yesterday I did a little shopping...today a little relaxation, and tomorrow?  Who knows what that will bring!. To be honest, I just had to get away from it all and do a little thinking. I will share it with you all soon, but for today, I needed to put things in perspective.  Just had to sort things through first, and the ocean has always been my special place. The smell and the sounds bring me so much joy. Just walking along the beach and looking at the tide, imagining the pull of the moon, is enough to take me outside of myself and whatever may be on my mind.  The ocean heals both my heart and soul.

I love watching as the never-ending rushing waves crash and retreat back into the ocean. There is something about the thrashing of the oceans waves that helps me to understand that there is more to life then what meets the eye. It reminds me that life is a cycle, and like the waves that slam against the shore, life sometimes leaves us crashing against a wall only to pull us back and allowing us to crash again until we have learned the lessons that we should have and move on to our next life lesson.

Life is very much a connected circle with one phase opening to another... much like the changing of the tides and the calmness and storms on the ocean. Sometimes life is calm, cool, inviting and at other times life appears to spinning in many different directions, and confusing. The waves cleanse and get rid of what it doesn't want. In the same way I, too, can take a lesson from the waves by taking all those negative and unnecessary thoughts and tossing them behind me.  I often get myself caught up in all the dramas in life, and today the ocean reminded me that something so much bigger and peaceful is happening all around me at all times. em

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

~
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)--