A scene in slow motion. A woman swimming and reaching, moving towards the surface. She makes it to the top, finding the sun and the air. She has a ship there. It’s a strong ship. A beautiful ship. A ship that carries her heart within it. Her people, her passions, her dreams. All that has sought her is here. This ship is the place that holds that which is sacred to her. The calls she has answered. The parts of herself and of life that she has realized were hers to find. The light that has been revealed from the darkness. “What you seek is seeking you” – Rumi. It is all here. This ship contains what is left when all else has fallen away. The true meaning and beauty in life. This ship is her present and it’s sailing to her future. Fueled by love and by what’s real. She climbs on, collapsing at first. Gasping. But then she catches her breath, she feels the sun, the breeze, the freedom – and she is renewed. She can stand and welcome her heart with open arms. She can welcome her life with open arms once more.
On the ship she can breathe. A breath she can truly relish after having felt what it feels like to sink… to feel as if she is drowning. She knows this feeling well. She knows too that the sinking is as essential as the rising. The sinking is what lets her know there is more to explore below, more to understand. This is how the ship stays protected. She must journey down when called, into the depths, and allow herself to be with all that is there. It is suffocating. Dark. And lonely. It is a journey below that she must take alone. But she must go nonetheless. She must go to protect the ship from being hijacked. From being misguided and tainted by what swells below the surface. She knows that what you don’t tend to only grows. It grows to an angry and unrelenting storm. It grows until it has caused the ship to cease and shake. Until it has cast a dark shadow and unrest on all that is within and around it. The storm clouds her sight and all of a sudden it is impossible for her to see what is in front of her. Instead she sees shadows and blurs. The real is gone. She must sink below so that she can be real again. So that she can be present in her ship and on her journey. Avoiding the call means she is not really there. And her ship is far too sacred for this. It requires all of her. So she must go. She must tend to the depths in order to rise to the surface and be free once more. And she does not drown. And although she must take this journey alone, her ship never leaves her. It is always there. A safety that cannot be shaken. A truth that resides even when it cannot be seen.
So she sinks and reaches and sinks again until she finds that next thing that was seeking her. The sinking is a calling. It’s a light shining into the darkness leading to the depths. And in these depths there is more to understand and more to gather for her ship... for her journey. There is purpose in it all. In the sinking and the rising there is freedom. A freedom to be real. To discover and feel all that seeks her, so that her ship can be the truest and brightest vessel for her journey. A vessel driven by all that is real. It is not hiding, running or disguised. It is not flying past the journey or frozen in fear of what’s next. It is authentic, real and fluid. It is the sum of all the parts. The form that has been created from all the pain, searching and sinking. It is the truest form of love, of beauty… of strength.