It’s the stuff of dreams, a trip around the world. From the frenetic cities and marketplaces throbbing with conversations in myriad languages to snow-capped mountains where there need be no words at all. From mysterious man-made structures and their lost meanings to the astonishing buildings of recent eras – mankind has always been a prolific builder of things. From ice palaces to tropical islands,  from the platypus to the father emperor penguin incubating the egg he fertilized – the wonders are endless.

How, then, is there more to see in a walk on the beach?

The wonders are truly no less. The ocean speaks not with words but with overtones of infinity, encompassing all of time. All that was, all that will be.  Continuity. It has always been here. The sun rises and sets as it has always done, painting the sky and waves with its fire. On a clear night at the beach, the moon and stars are silver sentinels of  vast outer reaches beyond the human grasp. Order; everything in its place. Reliability. The seafarers of old navigated by the stars.

Salt air, salt water – the beach is a place of healing. Body, heart, mind and spirit.

It is hard to stay worried at the beach – I have tried. Whatever is knotted in the heart or tangled in mind is slowly unraveled here. Peace, often so elusive, abounds with the splashing of waves on the shore; the breeze caresses, comforts, clears away. Restores.

The outer reaches of the world, the little pieces of the universe that we can see, impact us from the outside in. Wonder, awe, inspiration, curiosity.

The beach invites us to work from the inside out. To think. To contemplate ourselves, our place, our paths. Our existence. To know the inner reaches of our own minds, our own hearts.

The inner reaches are as vast as the outer.

Maybe more so.

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