by Timothy P McLaughlin

I waited and waited a great while
before I knew enough
about listening
to hear the bright ones
speak,
and only faintly at first,
so I wasn’t sure if anything
had happened at all.

We have made the walk from water to earth many times as humans, yes? I think about how we came from the ocean as a species. We grow in a fluid inside our mother’s wombs similar in makeup to the ocean before we ever take our first breath. And we walk the Medicine Wheel each and every year from the water of the west in autumn to the earth of north in winter, until our very last breath. 

By Rachel Baird

I am writing from the Holy Isle
Just off the eastern shore of Lamlash, 
Isle of Arran, Scotland.
During Green Tara prayer hour
I let the waves of chant wash over me and quickly moved into a lucid dream.

I dream of the whale:
Out in the dark waters
We are capsized by forgetting,
She swims to me
And puts my hand in her mouth,
Begs further exploration -
I feel the brittle curve inside her sinew
Like playing a harp
Or building a wattle,
Then choose to climb this baleen fence,

I grew up just blocks from the Ocean in San Francisco where I walked the beach nearly every day and was lulled to sleep at night by the sound of fog horns.  Sometimes, when in the water – I could feel these wave pulses of energy moving through my body and sometimes, at the shore, I could feel life forms moving far off inside the ocean.  I knew they could feel me as well and were communicating.  

My mother was holding me looking at the waves when suddenly a huge wave broke over us. The shock and sound of the wet spray gave me a baptism I never forgot. I grew up on two islands, one urban,the other rural, and at a very young age I was diving into the waves and buoyed up on their crests, or watching reckless teenagers jump into the East River trafficked by tugs and cargo ships headed out to sea. 

We offer gratitude to Ocean, the one great Ocean of the world, whom we call by so many names. Grandmother Ocean, thank you for Life! For the lives of our most ancient ancestors whom you cradled and fed, For the lives of all who came after, who stayed in your waters or ventured on land. For the lives of all the plants whom you water through the clouds, and for the  tiny phytoplankton who give us breath. We thank you Ocean, for the lives of all our relatives.