Water Born

Wild Things Born Free

Dear Friend

Since leaving home, I’ve lived in river valleys. First the river Don. Now the Thames.

I miss the ocean.

I was born between the Cumbrian fells and the Irish sea. Nestled in amongst such natural beauty, our steel town, spilling its guts onto the shore, the fresh winds blowing in from sea. Wild things, innocently adjusting to the ways of civilian life.

Looking back I see I chose a good place land.

The speed of descent into this world, the soul rides a beam of light. Like a laser, this family, this time, this place. Between hills and sea. Soft pudgy bodies, wobbly legged, water born we find our feet. We come here to learn to recognise ourselves.

In childhood, we must live in our hearts. A luxury afforded us by nature, we’re yet to take up residence in the world between our ears, they are still under construction.

Do you remember how it was to be the child? Who can forget?

I count myself one of the lucky ones. My parents’ deficits did not run into the red. My brother and me, we were wanted. My sister too.

Named Gale, like the winds that bend the trees to the north, she did not live to see the land. Water born she returned to spirit before she could breathe a lungful of air. She was buried in the grave of a stranger. We do not know where.

I understand my mother better now, loss upon loss. Her mother, suddenly of an aneurism, the way she would depart herself five decades later. Her father, one lung shortening his breath, and then a daughter.

Like the rocks on the shore. Pounded and caressed by the waves. Worn smooth. Surrendering to the inevitable ebb and flow of the tides. Our strength flows from our yielding. Like the reeds swaying in the wind. Growing down into this world.

The day mam died we went to the shore, gulping in the air. Fed by the wind, it forced its way into our cramped and nervous lungs. We’d been holding our breath for days. Stupefied, searching for signs of the familiar in a landscape made strange by death.

What must it be like to lose everything?

We must dive.

Beneath the surface.

Where it is still.

Even in a breaking heart.

There is Peace.

I was told once about a belief from the east. That there are two predetermined moments in each life. Those are the day of our birth, and the day we exit this world. How we live between these two points, is up to us.

I can’t say if this is true, but often I’ve been comforted by the thought of it.

The things we got up to when we were kids, it makes me wonder.

Late Winter, a storm. Saturday afternoon. Graham, my friend, we ride our bikes into the wind. The days are still short, but we have maybe a couple of hours of light. Canvas rucksacks from the Army and Navy store, we decorated them in felt tips. The best we could, we copied the artwork of the bands we idolised. My pride and joy was the logo for the Police’s ‘Ghost in the Machine’.

Funny to think of Sting as my first spiritual teacher.

In our bags, swimming shorts and towels.

You know when you can hardly stand, winds like that. Naked except for our shorts, the light fading, sun dipping towards the horizon, crawling over the wet rocks. The roar of the sea and wind in the caves of our ears. Free boys. Wild adventurers. Plunging into the icy water. Delighting as we are pulled under and then spat out again on shingle. Skin scored. Blinded by salt water, unaware we were risking our lives, gloriously alive. Hearts pounding. Watched by dog walkers bundled up in hats and scarves.

The lucky ones.

Born free.

The trick is to stay that way.

Dad, when he died, died in a room two minutes from the sea. When Santy went, I came to the shore. Our rivers they end in the ocean.

If your heart aches today.

Wether with sadness.

Or joy.

Breathe into it.

Tears like rain nurture the new life bursting through.

The spring will come.

To know oneself as spirit is to taste the eternal.

Just behind the things of time.

An ocean of peace.

Till tomorrow

Love

Mikey