There was a time when the trouble was just getting started.    I try not to do that – look back.  But some days, a little snippet of truth can come  in the time traveling illusion of this life – we meet ourselves in our past and future incarnations – through a misty fog of compassion for the usefulness of the pain and beauty in each moment.

The tender moment comes to me today of myself in 2009 in the waking of my ears for hearing.  I came to know the song of the splashing water and the detachment of each moment’s choice.  I can stew in the worry of today – or I can see the beauty in the midst of confusion and pain.

We were traveling on a sailing catamaran from Annapolis to Charleston, in a hurry to get back home before school started.  Each morning began with a 4 am alarm as we set off before daybreak to make our way on the Intracoastal Waterway.  None of this matters now – except in terms of contrast – This was a trip that did not make sense.  We were riding the last coattails of prosperity; symptoms of crazy were beginning to sprinkle every interaction with intensity, confusion, conflict. There was a story being told that was not true – a glamourous tale of adventure, of risk, of wealth – crumbling yet being glued together with sweat, desperation, fear, and lies.

We would set out each morning in confusion  of where to go in the dark, of how to read the beacons, the breakers, the gps, the charts.  We had scenes of  disagreement on how to even operate a boat, then the mass of confusion would tumble back into our berth, the children still asleep, and I would captain the boat as the sun came up.

Though tough times were ahead and confusion and fear reigned in the moment, in these mornings alone, I let it all go, as if my future self visited me and said, experience this now, even though it hurts.  The water splashing up against the side of the fiberglass made a particular sound; a thousand tiny bells were rung as each bubble touched the boat and erupted – the sun touching the water made a sound – each micro moment was a symphony of interaction – water, sun, waking.  If I had tumbled into my thoughts – I would have missed the music.

The thoughts were so seductive, thoughts of trying to diagnose manic behavior, fix the unfixable, make sense of senselessness, relive  verbal exchanges over and over.  Instead, I listened to the music.  It would be a while before I could step away – a good two years, yet I could put everything aside – live step-by-step and allow my ears to be baptized in the grace of each tiny splash, the sound of morning, the interaction that we were created for – to see hear taste the beauty, despite my little story.  Water sings in every form: steam, bubble, froth, placid, storm.  Our ears can hear it in the sink, the rain, the waves, the shower.

Water’s song, once unwrapped, never stops calling me back,  piercing the bubble of my wandering confusion, waking me with tenderness again and again.

‘Where Everything Is Music’

Don’t worry about saving these songs!

And if one of our instruments breaks,

it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place

where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes

rise into the atmosphere,

and even if the whole world’s harp

should burn up, there will still be

hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.

We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.

The graceful movements come from a pearl

somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge

of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive

from a slow and powerful root

that we can’t see.

Stop the words now.

Open the window in the centre of your chest,

and let the spirits fly in and out.

  ~  Rumi – Translated by Coleman Barks

Tags: detachment, gratitude, Living in the Moment