This morning at my favourite beach, I laid out on the shifting sands a simple mandala of found things, little bits of pumice and a few shells that I found along the shore.
What struck me as I gathered was how few shells there were, so much fewer than when I was a child. Whole tracts of beach are now quite empty of shells, and I thought that was quite sad.
It set me thinking about the depletion of sea life in our oceans, how human disregard for natural rhythms and Earth's wellbeing are rapidly altering the health of our oceans, and so that people who used to live off fish from the sea are now struggling. Australia has a terrible history of causing whole species to become extinct, and more recently, our governments have put our glorious oceans and our once thriving Great Barrier Reef under great threat from mining. We are fast selling our natural heritage down the river.
My little mandala might seem to be an homage to the sea, and it is, but it is also a wreath of mourning for what we have lost, and are fast losing. As much as I want to be positive, this expresses what was in my heart as I strolled the shore, and what has been troubling my mind - the stupidity and blindness of which we humans are capable, despite our limitless potential for greatness.
On the other hand (I cannot remain gloomy for long!), a breeze was skimming the shore, and I was intrigued by the delicate flowing movement of sand. It reminded me that we ourselves are in continuous motion, ever changing, yet because we focus on the familiar obvious patterns, we think that we are the same person as we were yesterday.
I am reminded of that on the mornings that I sit by the river. It is never the same, from moment to moment always changing, sometimes in response to seemingly tiny influences like a diving bird or a small manta ray hovering around the shoreline rocks looking for a meal.
A small rock protruding into the water causes it to ripple, each ripple sending out more and more ripples. Who know what far that effect continues into the river. A lone canoe gliding over seemingly still water cuts through it, leaving a strong wake that does not settle for ages, and if that wake meets wakes from other canoes or paddle boarders, the surface of the river as far as I can see moves in impossibly complex patterns.
We think of ourselves as this or that person, with this or that personality, but what we are is a river, a flowing process of change that is never ever the same. Who we are at any one moment is never quite who we were at another.
Why are we so determined to 'be' any one thing, any one person with any one way of thinking or being? Wouldn't it be infinitely more exciting, more realistic and also much more liberating to allow ourselves to fully and unashamedly experience who we are at any particular moment? If we did, we might begin to recognise the deep design of our individuality beneath all those changes, and be more truly ourselves.
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