I’ve been thinking about the waves, and how they show up—always coming, always meeting the shore. The waves are like thoughts, like moments, crashing in, coming into focus and fading out again. They’re not permanent; they’re just passing through. They rise up from the ocean—the vast, ungraspable ocean of everything that’s possible, everything that could happen. But once they hit the shore, once they crash into this moment, they seem real. The water splashes up, the foam dances, and for a second, it’s like this wave is all there is. But the moment it’s gone, it’s gone. The ocean remains.
I’ve found that life, too, is like this. We think we’re caught up in the wave, that it’s all-consuming, that it’s who we are. But if I step back just a little, I can see it for what it is: just a wave meeting the shore. And what I thought was solid, what I thought I had to hold on to, begins to dissolve in the space of awareness. The past wave has already passed; the future one hasn’t arrived yet. What’s left is the space between—the stillness.
But sometimes, it’s easy to forget. The old habits come back. The tension, the gripping. It’s like a wave of concern rising in my body, a flicker of tightness, maybe in my chest or my stomach. It’s a subtle shift. I notice it like I notice my grandchild teetering on the top rung of a playground. I feel the concern rise—Is he going to fall?—and then I watch as he finds his balance. That wave of worry dissolves. And just like that, I let go.
The body remembers, though. It remembers those moments when I held on too tight, when I got caught up in the wave and forgot to just watch it. But now, I’m learning to step back, to let the waves come and go without getting tangled in them. Even when the body reacts, when the muscles tense and the mind races, I can recognize it. It’s just another wave meeting the shore. I don’t have to hold onto it. It’s already on its way out, just like every other wave.
So, I keep returning to stillness. The ocean is always there, even when I forget. And with each wave, I remember a little more—letting go, watching, feeling the shift, and coming back to the moment, again and again. Like waves on the shore, this moment keeps coming, but it doesn’t stay. It’s just passing through. And that’s enough.
Spiritual Gravity 