Let the Water Hold You Now

Look up, my darling, look up.

When I hear Him, this space I’m in, at this plain wooden table, this window with the cobwebs at the corner of the metal screen, this soft rumble of washing machine, this smell of wet dog near my feet, I study the room, looking for clues for what is different.

All is different? No, all is the same.

But in that place deep within me, what is different is that I am still. Not nervous or fearful. Not anxious or tired. My body, held in this temporal existence of space and time, feels my lungs filling with air, my mind captivated by my heart’s calling: Yes, you are here, and more than here.

Where the water laps around me, my body floating, drifting with the rolls of the waves.

Immersed in beauty, yes. Immersed in Me.

When night falls, the ground wet with rain, I jump barefoot over puddles, a bag of trash clutched in my hand.

Look up.

I see You. I feel You.

Inhale. Exhale. Put the bag in the garbage bin, my eyes fixed on the black sky, the wild glistening of stars.

The One Who Loves teaches me about the water, the beauty of its holding me—body, mind, and heart—so I float in the waves. Turbulence or stillness, chaos or peace, I practice letting the water immerse me.

I practice staying immersed.

I practice letting Beauty hold me.

I practice discerning presence.

I practice the reality of being awake, attentive, eager to absorb and remain.

And I let Him hold me in the waves.

Perhaps it is Imagination, my dear friend, who helps me see myself in them. But as I immerse in these waves, the experience is more than Imagination’s kind of seeing. The immersion is knowing. The immersion is right now. The immersion is Love holding me, teaching me to be here, heart open, hands empty.

I feel you.

Water, Water, move through me.