The Wave ~ Steve Taylor

A Poetic Piece By Steve Taylor

The sea sighed with pleasure
as the wind caressed and stroked her
and then the wave was born.

The wave came from the sea
and was always a part of the sea.
But soon after he was created
he watched himself, as he began to rise
saw his own smooth and graceful motion,
the perfect arc of his forward roll,
the beautiful bubbling foam which sprayed around him
and fell in love with himself.

He started to believe that he was his own master
that it was his own strength that was propelling him
that he was directing his own flow
and could change direction if he wanted.

The wave forgot the ocean, and saw himself as separate –
a self-sufficient, sealess wave who felt proud of his power, exhilarated by his autonomy
as he rolled faster and rose higher.

But then he looked around,
and saw the other waves
who had already peaked and crashed
and were beginning to dip and to disperse
and the others who were already dissolving, disappearing.
He felt alone, as he sensed the empty space around him,
the distance between him and them.
And he felt afraid, realising that his form was temporary
that his speed and power would ebb away
and soon he would dissolve and disappear as well.

The wave resisted and rebelled –
he tried to build up more momentum, to collect more water,
to roll more smoothly, to foam more spectacularly
to make himself so powerful that he could never dissolve away
to make his form so perfect that he could escape decay.

But soon the wave realised he had no choice
that he had less control than he thought, less strength than he thought
that he couldn’t interfere with the forces that had made him
and the natural laws that shaped the process of his life.

So he stopped grasping and pushing
and felt the relief of letting go
and the freedom of no longer trying.
And after the majestic foaming rush, the glorious crescendo of his breaking
he gave himself up to his ebbing, fading flow
to the ease of his descent
and was filled with the joy of acceptance.

He allowed his boundaries to soften
and felt his connection to every other wave
then his oneness with the whole of the sea
and then he felt the vastness of the sea
within his own being, then as his own being.

And then the wave dipped, slowed down and began to dissipate,
and then quietly and serenely, without any fear or resistance
he gave himself to the tide, and became the sea again
knowing that he had never been anything else.

Steve Taylor is the author of The Calm Center: Reflections and Meditations for Spiritual Awakening (Eckhart Tolle Editions)

Visit his website for more of his inspiring poetic pieces