The Flow...

Many years ago I was in a time in my life where my world was falling apart and I was confused, depressed, and my world had gotten very small. I became a single father...my marriage had failed...and I was at a loss as to where to go...what to do next....so we went camping up the Northern California coast...up past Eureka...and before Crescent City...to try to get my head on straight....and on our way we stopped along a few beaches...just to take it all in...

It was a cold overcast grey afternoon with the surf crashing on the shore. The waves raised up four or five feet as they pounded the sand upon meeting with the earth and as I looked across the stretch of coastline in front of me heaving and swaying back and forth in an eternal and violent dance...I noticed a strange sight. There was a stick...in the surf...stuck firmly in the sand...in the middle of the waves...at an angle...pointing away from the water. I spotted it and thought that it looked strange...this stick...out of sorts...pointing up the beach and towards the woods and mountains as if a figure on a ship of old...leading the way...and I wondered what in the world it was doing there...

I wondered if someone had stuck it there and thought...well...they must have haven't they? Every wave came crashing against it and as each wave pulled itself back into that wet salty expanse of the sea...there stood the stick...proud...strong...fighting...standing...and so I watched this stick...I couldn't take my eyes off of it really...it must have stood three feet above ground so I thought that it must have at least that much below ground level as well...and then another wave hit...with force and ferocity....and then receded as if whimpering back to the sea that it came from...to come back and try again...and yet the piece of driftwood stood...

Wave after wave...it would come in....engulf and completely submerge the stick...and then recede again so that I could see the stick in it's entirety...I was mesmerized.

I stood there...cold...bleak...misted...damp....depressed...curious...wondering...and then quiet...letting the experience just simply take me....I took it in...breathed it in with my spirit...and as I did...I heard the small...still voice...the one that comes when God is trying to talk to you...it is never thunderbolts and lightening for me...it is a small...still voice...and you have to shut the hell up inside yourself to hear it...and in this experience...for me...with this stupid stick...on this cold and damp beach in Northern California...I heard that voice...talking to me...directly....and He said...as I let my mind and my eyes take in this simply yet extraordinary scene...."This...is the flow." I heard it...and then I questioned it.

The flow? The flow....uh...the flow of what? As I asked this I watched another wave come crashing in. He said..."This is the flow...of life. When you are overwhelmed...and life has you engulfed...when life has simply overtaken you...you are submerged". As this finished I watched the wave recede again...and He said..."And then you can breathe".

I watched again...in utter amazement...at how simple...how very simple this message was...and how very accurate. The wave comes in...and the stick disappears...completely under water. The wave retreats and there again I can see the stick standing...and I realized that of course...the stick is standing throughout...even when under the water...it stands...waiting for the water to recede...so that it can again breathe.

Brilliant! In the very moment when I was in dispair...overwhelmed...submerged...I looked up...and God led me to a truth...a truth in life and in the universe...a principle in life.

Everything...runs on this flow. Life, energy, water, physics, gravity, chemistry, geology, health, disease, relationships, communication, politics, philosophy, religion, music, yoga, art, and even God Himself. Even in the worst of it...you will have that wave recede and be able to breathe.

There is pressure applied...pressure maintained...pressure released...and then pressure reapplied. In a circular cycle it just keeps going on round and round...like the rotation of our planet...and the morning stretch we do to squeeze our veins to make our blood flow after we awake from a nights rest. A way of restarting our bodies. Our lives work the same way...we just need to pay attention to the flow...see it...recognize it...take accountability for it...because the flow is there...life is....the flow.