click on the links below for previous notes.
Read recently published articles on swimming with wild dolphins, published in leading magazines around the world.
Still reflections
Many different ideas surfaced as I pondered over a subject for the Wildquest newsletter article.
I did some journaling on a few of those subjects but it wasn't until the final day of August
that my thoughts crystallized , bringing together some of the more meaningful and
eventful moments of the last few weeks into a theme of sorts.
This clarity came as I was floating face down with snorkel and mask using two "Noodles" to support my body,
so that I didn't need to use any effort at all to stay afloat.
Each morning, I teach a yoga class. At the end of each class, while the participants are in the final resting position,
called shavasana, I lead a ten minute guided relaxation .
There in the ocean, I guided myself through the same process, until I was
in a very deeply relaxed state. As I drifted on the surface of the turquoise blue sea,
I observed the sea life going on around the "Stones of Atlantis" beneath me. People often marvel at the way the fish
just seem to be hanging around the stones in a "trance-like state". I smiled and knew,
in that moment, the fish and I were One... as I entered my own trance-like state. For a moment I even caught myself
on the edge of napping. The water was so flat. The ocean, flatter than a lake. Is a wondrous place to be.
The noonday sun was blazing in a cloudless sky and I could feel it baking my back as my limbs dangled
freely beneath the cool water. Directly below me, on the ocean floor I could see my own shadow and
the shadow of the ripples moving away from my body in circular patterns.
I made the same movement that I would do to make snow angels, and sure enough, an angel like pattern appeared in the play between
shadow, light and water. After thoroughly enjoying this pastime I head back to the boat, feeling rested
and clear.
That was when I knew that I had just lived
the experience that would inspire this article.
There is an old and well known Zen proverb that says, (forgive me for paraphrasing)
" The mind is like the water, when it is still you can see clearly to the bottom".
I laughed to myself, finding it interesting that I had just found my clarity by literally being in the still water.
The stillness of
the water helped to still my mind and
from there pure
inspiration was present to behold!
.
____________
P.S. All the photos were taken during August 2005.
