"Hours Lost.....Moments Found....."

Such a long solo sea kayak trip... So very long even though the days out were few... Longer even than many past trips because the journey was not so much of distance but more seemingly through time...

It was around a very distant point I kept going past in order to discover a lovely cove behind those great rocks. There tides and currents and waves all conspired to keep much hidden away, but then would share their secrets if a wanderer was persistent and determined enough.

When first stepping out upon that sand, a slow stretch was needed, and it was then that I felt more than I just saw of this Island being stood upon, more than the very old trees and the even older rocks nearby. I needed a moment to allow whatever was trying to gently seep into my consciousness the time necessary to do so. So I just sat down... half in the ocean, half upon this secluded shell and sand beach.

It was only when my kayak began its slow movement away from me that I realized how far I was drifting myself, and thus began a time where many hours were lost, yet so many moments were found...

I can't say all of what I guess took place, as those endless waves of thoughts moved about, through, and around me. Many I wrote in my journal but too many others drifted away with the gently receding of the tide. I think I must have lived many passings of the moon, maybe even of the seasons, that single day... such was the meanderings of the moments, the wanderings of what we usually think we understand of this concept and metaphor of time.

I remember two eagles, and a few other more cautious birds come and go with the whispering breezes. I was pondering them as they were surely wondering about me and why I was there. Those other previously planned objectives were not to be met that day, but that was no matter, as so many other meaningful and wonderful things developed instead.

I recall losing count of the larger waves I was watching that would roll up in that secret series that they have, but instead gained a sense of some other rhythms that were not known to me before... When another stretch was needed I simply stood up, walked a bit, although you couldn't really call it a walk. It was more of a drifting, strolling movement where my legs moved from rock to rock, sand to tree, through wave after wave, and the rest of me simply followed along. Then there were the endless pauses where so much time was spent just standing, gazing, dreaming, breathing, all of this simply second by second upon second.

The small meals I ate throughout that so alive quiet day were nutritious and tasted so good, as if they were made of more than just food; which is often like that out in such places of wilderness...

Some of the tracks in those sands I knew well, others belonged to those shadow creatures, the very small ones, who only come out at night or when you invite them - more with attitude than with foods they shouldn't have anyway. I sensed them there as well, basking among the rocks, hidden in the sun dappled trees, watching me to see if I had yet to become one of them, and then could be trusted with their treasures...

I think it was also that symphony of those deeply quiet resonating natural sounds that took away any need to keep moving back upon the ocean. Sounds that invited me to linger longer among those musical longings... Sounds which came and went as did those images in my mind of places, people, loves, and other lives we each have all shared out there and back here...

There were none of those other kinds of disruptions during that day of countless hours and endless moments. It was a day I will envision again often when in the midst of traffic and concrete, distractions and disputes, and other so seemingly important demands, which will all eventually ebb away into the background, where they really belong anyway.

We are often so grasping of schedules and other things we are told are so necessary, that such ephemeral moments as those on that island, of subtle but more true importance, are often lost in time...

There is just something about the very waters edge where the ocean holds close to the land, and where the rocks return that embrace, which speaks to our most inner being, and how we live out our lives...

Many of us who wander the wild places can attest to the experience of living a lifetime during the span of a day out there... We know that the clock many times has no function during such journeys of the sun and the moon and the wind. We have all instead felt that the heartbeat inside of us, and of those around us, are the only real measure that an adventurer needs an awareness of... Where the only timely elements that matter are the winds that caress our face, the sun which glides slowly across above us, the waves that gently rock us, and the animals who still themselves and come to sit beside us...

Hours were lost that day... Treasures within the moments were found...

DSD