Creatures of Habit.
As is the pattern of my life I woke around 4 a.m. Perched on the edge of the bed looking out towards the ocean at such a dark hour there were only faint traces of moon shadow on the porch. As I looked toward the water I realized I was seeing irregular flashes of white light. No thunderstorms were in the area which gave me a slight moment of panic thinking that something might be wrong with my eyes, except that the flashes of light were irregular and from different locations. After a few moments of watching (without my glasses) I realized that I was seeing flashes from a phone taking pictures of the ocean. Someone was out on the rocks in the wee hours of the night. Slowly I recognized pools of round yellow moving patches, a flashlight illuminating the rocks as the person moved along the water’s edge.
In the four years I have lived here I’ve never seen anyone out on those rocks after dark. Those with fishing poles usually push the limits of natural light but they retreat when true darkness falls. Of course it is highly probable that others have been on the rocks while I was sleeping. Only in cold winter when an icy coating slickens all surfaces have I truly not seen humans along the jagged shoreline. The pull to be as close to the power of the water is constant yet surprising when the tide is exceptionally high and waves are huge. Diligence has to be paid at all moments, the need of awareness of an escape route ever present because the rocks are daunting and access to patches of higher ground in front of the few houses out here are widely spaced. The rule holds: “Never turn your back on the ocean”.
The most interesting part of all of this has been my assumption that no one would want to be out among those rocks in the darkness. Long ago a Somali friend who grew up near the ocean in Mogadishu told me that in his country it was believed that bad spirits came out of the ocean at night so no one who lived nearby would go near the water after dark. Darkness to humans means fear of what might be lying in wait. Is darkness still fearful in modern life or has light pollution robbed us of our own powerful abilities to adjust? Living in places without street lights means being able to see planets and stars, means awareness of vast, and ever present wonder, means feeling like a tiny speck amongst the unfathomable.
We are creatures of habit long past the point where things have undergone radical alteration which we fail to recognize. We cannot adapt to what we fail to notice. Perhaps one of the reasons we global humans are having such a hard time during this pandemic is that we want what we know to return. We are resistant in so many ways but our lives have already changed forever.
What is most interesting is our challenge to turn and face the unknown trusting that modifications and entire new ways of being can come into being during this opportunity, for opportunity is truly what is happening. If we faced forward and not back perhaps we’d see this time as it really is, being able to glimpse the light beyond the darkness.
The Marginal Way 