What Can The Ocean Teach About Spirituality?

The ocean is a microcosm of the Universe.

The ocean provides everything we need on earth. It provides enough meat and greens to provide for a nation. It absorbs and gives off heat. It has currents that circulate the globe like the winds in the stratosphere. The plant life releases the majority of our oxygen. Its energy could power machines. You can reach every land by navigating its surface. It can rear up and swallow you and never give you back.

When we think of God or the Universe we think in terms of unlimited.  When we sit at the beach and gaze at the ocean, we have this feeling of unlimited. It may be the largest vista we can ever see if we are not on a mountain top or in an airplane. Why do people feel relaxed just by sitting on the beach? In times of stress, why do we think of going on vacation to an island?

In a recent storm from New Zealand that pounded the beach with 12 foot waves, every spectator was awestruck. You could feel and hear the energy of the waves pounding the beach. If you were on our local pier, you could feel it tremble as the waves crashed into the pylons. Standing on the pier and watching the waves roll by underneath was like looking into the mouth of a viper that was separated by a double pane of glass.

I recently was held down in the impact zone of a 7 foot storm wave and when it released me I figured a 10 foot wave would probably kill me. I didn’t feel panic and I didn’t feel remorse. I felt surrendered to the outcome because I had ventured into the situation on my own volition. Afterward I was moved by the feeling that I had been swallowed and spit up by the loving Mother.

Being in the ocean is also like being in the hand of the creator. It can caress you and give you a feeling that you are one of the blessed creatures under his care on earth or it could crush you with no more thought than accidently stepping on a bug. You can query a handful of people and half are afraid to go very far into the ocean. Going in is tempting fate.

Anyone with experience in the ocean can tell you that it is always changing and it can always be dangerous. The more experienced watermen like life guards, surfers, and fisherman have more respect for the beauty and the danger. It has a yin and yang and you tempt it with your presence.

There is this sense of surrender when you enter the ocean to surf. You are looking to have the best time of your life. You are looking to be renewed by an hour in the water. You are looking to find yourself in your skill to harness the waves. You are surrendering  to the experience of any outcome you might not have anticipated.

Does the ocean remind us of the womb? We lived in embryonic fluids for nine months. Three and a half billion years ago our DNA lived in the ocean. Do we remember?

Recently a baby dolphin came within ten feet and surfaced to stare at me. Dolphins are mammals that once lived on land and evolved to be sea creatures. Amphibious creatures came from the sea and evolved to be dinosaurs. Do we hear the call of the sea sirens seductively urging us to come back? When dolphins come close to surfers, push stranded sea farers to land, or come up just to look at us, do we realize how closely connected we are on so many levels?