Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
T. S. Eliot – The love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Whenever we touch nature, we get clean. People who have got dirty through too much civilization take a walk in the woods, or a bath in the sea. They shake off the fetters and allow nature to touch them. It can be done within or without. Walking in the woods, lying on the grass, taking a bath in the sea, are from the outside; entering the unconscious, entering yourself through dreams, is touching nature from the inside, and this is the same thing; things are put right again.
Carl Jung Dream Analysis: Notes on a Lecture Given, 1928 -1930
The waves echo behind me. Patience – Faith – Openness, is what the sea has to teach. Simplicity – Solitude – Intermittency… But there are other beaches to explore. There are more shells to find. This is only a beginning.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
After a five-hour drive, we spied the ocean extending out before us as we approached the hotel. We had made it just before sunset and the leaden cloud cover which had stubbornly clung on all day had just begun to disperse. My companion and myself shared a brief glance which silently declared: `First the beach, then the rest.´
The remaining daylight was spent walking the long sandy Belgian beach, first southward towards France and the lazily setting sun. My inner child immediately delighted in this surprising bonus after what had been a long, tedious day. The feel of the sand giving way under foot, the crackling sound of shells fragmenting, the music of the surf, the wind in my hair, the light show of the sun’s oblique rays reflected on the ocean and the wet sand, imprinted with the crazy zig-zag tidal designs of surf and wind; this kaleidoscopic activation of the senses yielded strong feelings of fulfilment and deep gratitude.
And the expanse. That is what blew me away. Like those described by Jung as ` having got dirty through too much civilization´, I had forgotten how large the world was. It had been almost nine months since my last sojourn at the ocean. That was on my first, long-awaited post-pandemic trip back to Ireland to celebrate life with my large extended family on the rugged Atlantic coastline in the West of Ireland. That venue had been a fitting backdrop for the momentous milestone in question; the fiftieth birthday of the youngest of ten.
No, I lie. Sardinia came shortly after that. The warm glistening east coast of that hot, dusty island in July was the perfect convalescence location after I had contracted Covid on my return from Ireland. It had been my first trip to that beautiful island and my exploration drives were fully drawn upon and satisfied, from start to finish.
Since that adventure, except for a few short trips within mainland Europe, I have been camped at home on the riverbank here in the Rheinland, diligently engaged in the typical activities of building a new business; a combination of providing coaching, engaging in training, learning, praxis, and the more tedious task of business development.
Stimulated by my daily outdoor runs, walks, and cycles, I appreciate the beauty of my home with the majestic river framed by wooded verdant countryside. From 70m altitude the world appears rather small however, relative to the views from the summits of the nearby seven hills (Siebengebirge) overlooking the Rhein Valley or, indeed, the wide-angled vista which presented itself in Oostende on Friday afternoon. It blew my mind, bowled me over, filled me with delight.
We had undertaken the long drive to attend the first post-pandemic North Sea Convention, a get-together of over four hundred recovering addicts of various nationalities, mostly resident in Europe. Such occasions provide an opportunity for fellowship, discovery, service, and fun. While the weekend unfolded and the weather outside became all the more inclement, a warm, inviting force field of inquiry, compassion, experience, strength, and hope took shape among us.
How does such a phenomenon come about? In what is sometimes termed `the spirituality of imperfection´ we meet eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart, to celebrate our once seemingly doomed, now revitalised and transformed lives. Recovery is a spiritual process and thus characterised by paradox.
When we admitted our powerlessness, we gained access to a power of higher frequencies than that of the ego which had gotten us into our trouble. When we took that step which, for most, went diametrically against the grain of our default programming, namely when we asked for help, we discovered that what we considered our default patterns were, in reality, the cladding that hid our true essence; cladding comprising multiple layers of survival strategies we developed – and which had protected us – as we navigated the adversities of childhood. Over time, however, they had become liabilities with the power to kill.
A further paradox of recovery is: `If you want to keep it, you’ve got to give it away.´ It is that spirit that these four hundred people came together over this past weekend. The energy field thus created is impossible to describe; it must be experienced to be fully grasped. As if of perpetual motion, a dynamic of mutual support and inspiration kicks into gear, the frequency of the field increasing as the weekend progresses.
I am reminded of the image of a group of famished people sitting around a huge cauldron of soup with only spoons of ridiculous length at their disposal. Far longer than a human arm, they make it impossible to feed oneself. Then one person gets the bright idea that they should each feed the person opposite. In this manner an individual problem is solved by means of a collective solution. All are ultimately satiated.
While the problem we mutually share is indeed serious – my guardian angels were kept very busy during my active years of drinking and I have been to enough early-life funerals to know – the manner in which we interact is full of fun, warmth, and even mischievousness. There was much laughter, lots of hugs, and many the meeting of smiling eyes. If he were alive today, C. G. Jung would probably add this quality of interaction to his list of `touching nature from the inside.´
Years ago, while attending Inner Work workshops, meditation retreats, and seminars, others often entreated me to `open your heart Patrick´. I hadn’t a clue what those people were talking about. Now I do. It has happened without my control or even my being conscious of its unfolding. When we packed up the car on Sunday to make the long journey home, my heart felt as expansive as the ocean which had been the backdrop of our inspirational gathering. Unlike J. Alfred Prufrock, I had heard the mermaids sing to me.
As we drove away, the final words of `Gift From The Sea´ by Anne Morrow Lindbergh came to mind: `The waves echo behind me. Patience – Faith – Openness, is what the sea has to teach. Simplicity – Solitude – Intermittency… But there are other beaches to explore. There are more shells to find. This is only a beginning´.
