Life Adrift or Navigating Life

Life Adrift or Navigating Life

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

As we go through life the shallow waters of a familiar lagoon seem safe and pretty and warm.

How terrifying are the deep waters!  How dark and cold!....worst of all, how unknown! 

The shallow waters, their enticing hues, their warmth, their brightness, their clarity, entice us to stay close to shore, preventing our leaving for any other shore, precluding our exploring that which could expand our horizons.

It is usually only hunger, need, and desperation that drive us to leave the warm, shallow waters and set sail across the dark and deep…..

….and of course sometimes the occasional storm, the crisis, the disaster, tossing us out of our familiar harbors and bays, marooning us in uncharted emptiness, forcing us to choose our direction.

Sometimes after the storm the familiar waters, those shallow waters, the beach of comfort still remain in sight, still enticing us back.  But sometimes, once in a while, the storm tosses us so far away, or so thoroughly submerges our once secure shores, that we are left in the midst of deep and dark, with no apparent bearing and no source of direction.

We are left with ourselves, and with our ability to read the stars and listen to the whispering breeze. 

In those circumstances we may grab at any passing boat, cling to any floating debris of souls as lost and displaced as we.  We may drift in currents and tides, often as not unseen, but none the less moving us, inexorably shaping our course.

We may spy unfamiliar shores, with their promise of shallow waters, and we may frantically make for that destination, only to find crashing surf and sharp reef threatening what little tattered security still keeps us afloat.

Secure beaches, unchallenging, requiring no personal exploration…….

Passing tides and currents carrying us unaware…….

Promises of shore and shallows that upon close encounter reveal sharp reef and crashing surf……

So we go through life,

seeking the secure shore and fun beach and clinging to it when possible,

carried in unchallenged directions when life events set us adrift,

occasionally fighting for survival in the roiling surf and slicing reef……

…..unless,……

……unless we listen to the whispering breeze,

open our soul to awareness of the sky and stars,

dare to sail out of our secure and entertaining bay,

not to aimlessly drift in currents of trends, society, and marketers,

but to sail with direction,

navigating by reference points immutable,

to sail with resolve,

though we know not our destination.

Copyright 2016 Don Ray