Thin Branches (Heading to Weather)

On a boat, there is a term for the decision to stop beating down the coast or up the coast or wherever you are beating against the wind and waves. It's called "Heading to Weather". It sounds easy enough. Just turn around. But you are always vested in the ground you've made going where you are going and no one likes to lose ground. Often you are certain if you just keep going, the waves will lessen. You think it can happen, by your will alone. But the real deterrent is the seconds fraught with danger during the turn where your boat must be broadside to the waves. 

There's no way around it. You have to place your boat in the most vulnerable of positions. You are vulnerable because you have to stop fighting and turn around, surrender your ego and everything you are fighting so hard to protect. You risk letting the waves tear you down by showing them your weakness, your broadside, which is defenseless. 

Of course you wait and wait for what seems like a wider space between the waves in which to turn. Hoping for an extra second or two to turn completely about. Really what you are doing is getting the courage up to make the turn. Reaching deep in yourself to find that place of peace, a calm center, that carries you through the next ten seconds. That place you know inside that cannot be touched, even by sinking boats and untimely deaths. It isn't a place we come to by action or climbing a mountain or achieving, it is more of a surrender to what is perfectly whole and complete before we even laced up our boots. 

So you find that place, begin the turn, and within a few seconds all the pounding, the stress, the fighting and danger are behind you. Actually the energy once pummeling you now pushes you almost gently, as you glide down the waves, in the most bizarre contrasting feeling, something like being pushed on a swing. 

The wind quiets and the ease is indescribable. The relief is palpable and for a few moments you realize you could have done this before but know that all is well exactly as it unfolded and you forgive yourself for fighting when your back was against the wall. It's what humans do. It's what waves do. We find compassion for ourselves and anyone else on the path to finding one's turning point. How can we know that which we are capable of without pushing up against our fears, without losing what we value in ourselves for a moment, hopefully brief, so we know how to more fully embody it and offer it to the world.