Written by Lyn Horton

More often than not, when I visit the water, its unstoppable motion and infinite gurgles take me to a place in my mind that is peaceful. The phenomenon of water itself overrides my heady turmoil, my rants of self-deprecation, the seemingly continual aches and pains within my physical being.

Water is a vehicle for tuning out the cacophony of the barrage of information with which I am hit every day. There is only so much computer networking that I can face or in which I can even participate.

Paradoxically, the computer is the tool I need for promoting my interests and my writing. Look at this blog for heavens’ sake.

If I remove myself from the currency of cultural time which happens to be technological, I truly deny the essence of human evolution. Whatever is going on out there beyond my immediate reach, I can bring into my environment somehow through this machine. Yet the drawback of this machine is that it takes me away from human contact, which, as a social being, I desperately need.

Granted a state of hermit-tude aids in focusing, concentration, and a chance for introspection can happen in no other way, I can spiritually die if I do not break the solitude and breathe the air, tread on the ground, listen to the birds, smell the flowers, let my fingers get numb, perspire, bump into people on the sidewalk. Whatever is there for me to do.

I am seeking an intimate embrace.
The embrace that comes from the poetry of feeling closeness to myself.
The closeness of the one I am with. Stephen Stills meant his lyrics: When you’re down and confused, Love the one you’re with.
Yet, if I can inhale safety and love without the presence of anyone, I am in the intimate embrace I am seeking. I am in The embrace of God. God never wavers in His Love.

God takes many forms but I am with Him always. Just as the memories of those whom I love accompany me all the time. I can take them wherever I go. They experience whatever I experience.

I can go to the stream; I can go to the river; I can go to the ocean; I can stand in the rain.
I am close to my true self, which is endless, unprotected, intangible, uncontrolled, a simple project of awareness. With or without the water.

Text © Lyn Horton