An Opening Way

One day last summer as I was sitting at the edge of the surf with the tide coming in, there was an instant when it seemed all right to let the waves sweep over and dissolve me into the sea. I cannot forget the temptation of that moment. There was tragic sorrow, but no fear, only peace. Without conscious impulse or thought, I got up, suddenly overflowing with the fullness of life. As though for the first time, the healing sun penetrated me through and through. There was a fresh awareness of everyone and everything. I ran to the family, as glad to see them as though I had been gone a long time.

In a way, I had been gone for a lifetime. There had been three weeks of playing with the children on the beach, walking or sitting by the hour in the sun, doing nothing purposefully, but all the while keeping watch on the journey of my conscious life from its beginning, waiting to let life disclose itself, rather than to attack it with preconceived notions and prearranged questions. What I have written here is an account of some discoveries on that voyage.